a top—tier finalist in Globe Soup’s 2024 “Primal Fears” contest.

Twenty-seven days passed without the sun. 

Twenty-six, without Kieran.

For twenty-seven days, Orla walked from town to town through the ceaseless rain, rationing her dwindling supplies of damp hardtack crackers, consulting her waxed paper map as raindrops beaded on its surface. If her calculations were correct, the sun would appear in just a few moments. If they weren’t correct, she would be sleeping on the Bog Road, out in the open, and by morning, she would be dead. 

Calling the half-rotted plank through the bog a "road" was an overstatement. The Bog Road was only wide enough for one person, two, if they were narrow-shouldered and cautious. There were no rails, no ropes, nothing to keep reddish-brown sludgy waters from sloshing over Orla's boots, dampening her socks and beckoning her into the abyss that had snatched Kieran away and doomed both of them. 

She paused, breathless with grief, and scanned the uninterrupted wasteland. It stretched out for eternity, dead and flat and gray, ending only in mountain ridges too vast and ancient to comprehend. They layered against the sky in shades of blue like shadow puppets against a dirty sheet. One of those mountains, she knew, housed Sun City. 

 It was rumored to be a paradise: bountiful, peaceful, and, most importantly, dry. Sun City was where she and Kieran had promised to meet if the bog ever separated them. They were bound together by mutual survival, a force stronger than friendship or love. When the thorny branches crept from the bog and wrapped around his knees, Kieran had told her to run, and she had. He was surely dead, rotting in the sour potion of ancestors and long-extinct beasts below her feet. But Sun City was a place of miracles, and its silhouette in the rain planted within Orla a seed of hope that somehow Kieran would keep his promise. 

Orla patted her raincoat pocket, feeling for the knife she kept there ever since she lost Kieran to the bog. Her wool gloves were sopping wet, reeking to high hell and wrinkling the skin of her unnaturally pale fingers. She would have to replace them soon, but the knife had cost her last few seeds and a blossom, everything she had to trade. Still, it made her feel safer, the rusted blade her only companion in the wild stretch of nothingness. 

She needed the sun.

And then, she saw it. 

Not the sun itself; living in perpetual rain made it hard to tell light from dark, day from night. No, Orla had never seen the sun directly. But a patch of the bog, about a hundred yards away, started to stir. Flowers and bushes Orla didn't recognize, beautiful, life-giving things, sprouted and stretched as if waking up after a long nap. 

The patch of sky grew from a pinprick in the gray to a circle of bright blue, and soon, it was the biggest Sunspot Orla had ever seen, wider than a village square. In the shock of sunlight, plants thrived. Blackberries, so fragrant they made Orla's head spin. Sunflowers, painfully yellow and towering higher than Orla was tall. Hemp, tea leaves, herbs, and palm trees shot skyward, forming an oasis of life in an endless sea of rot. There was enough growing to set her up for dozens of lifetimes; with just a handful of oranges, she could buy herself a spot in Sun City.

But only if she got there first. With a sinking, cold feeling that had nothing to do with the rain, Orla noticed a figure lurching toward the plants. She had never seen anyone else this far out; scavengers pulling up petrified wood or drying turf never ventured into the open. Her heartbeat picked up speed; the Sunspot would not last more than a few minutes, and by the time she got there, the scavenger might have taken everything good. 

Or, worse, the sun would have moved on. Plants didn't last long without the sun, and neither would she. She was afraid, but the Sunspot was already shrinking. If she didn't move fast, there would be nothing to collect but compost. 

Orla adjusted her pack and began to run.

The Bog Road was rain-slick and crawling with lichen, and Orla skidded with every few steps. Her conscious mind flickered out, and pure, animal instinct propelled her forward, guiding each step, each leap over shattered boards. As she sped closer, her eyes adjusting to the light, she saw that the figure gathering plants in the Sunspot was an older man, hunched and thin.

She tore off her gloves and flung them behind her, smiling. She was going to make it, she realized. She was going to eat something fresh for the first time in weeks. She was going to collect bags of fruit and live in Sun City and see Kieran again –

Something caught around Orla’s ankle and pulled. Her leg sunk down into the bog, immediately soaked in filthy brine. 

Vines. The same nettle-sharp vines that had snagged Kieran. 

Orla kicked at them, clawing with her bare hands, and lurched forward, smashing her chin onto the Bog Road. 

At the sound, the old man whipped around toward Orla. 

Too fast. He slipped into the bog.

When her panic ebbed, she pulled the knife from her pocket and slashed at the vines until they freed her. Then, with excruciating effort, she wrenched her foot out of the bog and limped the last few yards to the Sunspot. She pulled off her overcoat in the sun's light, welcoming its rays even as they burned her skin. 

But Orla couldn't savor the moment; she couldn't even think about the old man, who was rapidly sinking into the bog. She dumped empty, watertight canisters from her bag and began to gather as many plants as she could snatch. Thorns pricked her through her clothes, splitting her bare skin, but Orla kept gathering.

The old man, now sunk to his waist, swiped at Orla's ankles, trying to get her attention. He seemed to be shouting.

"What?" After weeks of rain constantly thrumming against her hood, Orla's ears rang with its absence.

"Help me," the old man croaked. "Please." 

Orla looked at him, then up at the sky. The Sunspot was shrinking rapidly now, the plants at its edges shriveling, wilting, brown and useless as soon as they touched shadows. Dying, just as Orla would if she couldn't gather enough plants and had to spend a night in the open.

"Just a second," she said frantically, her voice hoarse from disuse. Stepping off the Bog Road onto the low-hanging branches of a peach tree, she crawled deeper into the ephemeral forest.

"I need to see Sun City," the man pleaded. The bog waters reached his shoulders now, dirtying the ends of his white hair. "Just once. Please." 

"Just a second," Orla snapped, her waterlogged fingers plucking raspberries and herbs. "We all want to see the city." 

She began to sweat. By the shifting light, she could tell there were mere seconds before the sun disappeared. It could be gone for days. 

Or weeks. 

Or months.

Shadows crawled over her skin, and raindrops splattered on her exposed forehead. She jumped back onto the Bog Road the second the Sunspot closed shut, leaving her behind in an empty world of gray and death.

Exhausted, Orla slumped back on the wooden planks, breathing heavily. Tears pricked her eyes. The light on her skin had felt so impossibly good, the scent of sun-warmed leaves intoxicating. She wished Kieran had been there to experience it. 

Orla wiped her tear-and-rain-soaked face and turned to the old man. 

"Okay," she said. "I'll pull you out now." 

But the bog was empty. 

Numb, Orla slowly packed the plants she collected, her stomach twisting in knots. She could not feel guilty; guilt would have her jump face-first into the bog. If she had tried to help him, she might have been sucked down right along with him. The bog claimed many; it might have claimed Kieran. The old man’s life was not more important than hers.

Laden with her still-warm riches, Orla began to walk again, albeit more slowly, keeping her eyes downcast for more murderous vines and holes in the road. With her bounty, she could afford to stay the night at an inn. One with dry sheets, even. There was no danger of being stuck outside. But the tins of plants and what it cost to get them weighed heavily on her shoulders. 

An hour down the road, the mist cleared. Orla could see a town up ahead, a trading post where people huddled together against the rain and hid from the bog’s cruel openness. The Bog Road's ancient, rotted planks, always a single, thin scar on the landscape, gave way to flat stones. Alleyways radiated from the main concourse like dendrites, and peat-fire smoke rose from spindly stilt taverns. The mountain that held Sun City loomed over the town, conspicuous, a beauty mark on the craggy mountain ridge, as sharp-edged and unnaturally symmetrical as a child's drawing.

Orla wandered through the streets, dodging streams of water from the gutters of homes and taverns until she was stopped by a viselike grip on her upper arm.

"Medallion, girlie?" 

A street vendor who looked like he had just been pulled from the bog himself held a crooked tree branch in front of Orla's face. On the branch dangled hundreds of brightly-colored gemstone necklaces, each stone emblazoned with lucky runes. 

"This one," the vendor said, smiling with his few rotted teeth, "is proven to attract the sun to the wearer." 

Orla examined the orange stone. Even in the muddied witch-light of rainy dusk, its colors flickered as if a fire raged inside it. 

"You have at least a dozen of them," Orla observed, "yet the rain persists." 

The man's cheeks turned red as the raspberries in Orla's pack. "I misspoke," he corrected. "It will conjure a Sunspot…when the wearer needs it most." 

Orla doubted this. The medallion was worthless; nothing could conjure the sun. It came and went, eluding the most advanced compasses and detailed maps. That's why there were so few like her and Kieran, people crazy enough to follow the sun through the vast wasteland. 

But she wanted the gem. Yes, it was useless. But Orla had never had anything pretty before, anything frivolous. Living on the road meant she carried her life with her. Every tiny weight in her bag, every thimble, every cracker, counted. But she would be in Sun City by tomorrow, reunited with Kieran. She had riches to spare. Why shouldn't she indulge? 

Orla reached into her bag and pulled out a single, perfectly ripe peach. The vendor's eyes widened; likely, he had never seen fresh fruit before. Few people had. Orla grinned and flipped her knife, slicing the peach in clean halves. The half with the pit, she placed in her coat pocket. The other, she handed to the trembling vendor. 

"Keep the change," she smirked, pulling the orange gemstone over her neck and tucking it beneath her shirt. 

As she turned to leave, the vendor shoved the entire peach half into his mouth, unable to resist the temptation. His eyes watered as the juices streamed down his face, mingling with the rainwater. Orla turned her face away in disgust. She wondered if the man knew what those brief seconds of pleasure had cost.

#

A tavern was nestled just at the base of Sun City mountain, protected from the winds and rain by a craggy outcropping of obsidian rock. Drier than the other nearby buildings, its cheerfully sun-yellow painted walls were only slightly peeling. Peat-fire smoke plumed from the chimney, pooling against the rocky overhang and giving the impression that the entire house was smoking a putrid cigar. Orla tucked her chin against a sudden downpour and headed straight to it. 

Inside, Orla settled by the open fireplace, which roared, drying her thick woolen sweater. The innkeeper, a kindly-looking woman, approached Orla to take her order.

“A room for the night and whatever food is hot.” She pulled a bundle of fresh lavender from her bag. Its fresh, floral scent wafted through the room, somehow overpowering the damp smell of turf. Orla handed the flowers to the innkeeper. “Will this be enough?” 

The woman’s eyes widened, but she said nothing and tucked the bundle into her apron pocket. The other tavern patrons turned to watch the exchange. 

They know about the old man, Orla worried as she sipped a mug of hot tea, trying to ignore the stares. Perhaps she was imagining their accusatory looks and the petrichor scent of her guilt wafting through the room like the ripening fruit in her backpack.

After Orla finished her dinner, an unseasoned bowl of potato stew, she followed the innkeeper through a back door and up a flight of damp wooden stairs that groaned under her weight.

“Here’s you,” the woman said, unlocking a tarnished brass lock with a skeleton key. “And a word of advice,” she added under her breath, “lock this door tonight.” 

Orla nodded as if she were listening and closed the door without locking it. She was too tired, too relieved, too guilty to think of anything beyond the room before her. She threw her bag of priceless treasures unceremoniously to the ground and flopped, fully clothed and still damp, onto the bed. The sheets against her face were dry, if a bit scratchy. She sighed, inhaling the scent of clean cotton. This is what it would be like every day in Sun City, she imagined. And she would be there in just a few hours. 

Exhaustion and guilt pressed her down into the mattress. Like a Sunspot closing mercilessly over a hard-to-reach patch of flowers, Orla’s eyes shut, and she slipped into the all-consuming darkness of sleep. 

#

Orla awoke hours later to the sound of rain. Judging by the bleary gray light, it was still early; if the sun were visible, it would be just rising over the distant horizon of infinite bog. She sat up and stretched, the fabric of her newly waxed raincoat cracking. A vague sense that she was in trouble gnawed at her, perhaps a remnant of a nasty dream where it was Kieran, not the old man, stuck in the bog, flowers and fruit blooming around him while he sank to his death.

She sat up with a start. Memories flooded her mind, and with them, fear. She reached for her bag of plants, her heart pounding louder than the rain thrumming against the windows. The pack felt lighter than it had before. 

Orla dumped the bag out on her bed. 

A few pairs of socks. 

Her wax map and grease pencil. 

Canisters, all empty.

No plants. 

Orla’s ears began to ring. It couldn’t be possible. Desperately rummaging through her pockets again for a stray seed, a petal, anything of value, she found nothing but the worthless little sun medallion. She needed the plants to get into Sun City; she couldn’t show up empty-handed. And she needed to get into Sun City to find Kieran. If she didn’t, she would be back on the Bog Road with only the wind and emptiness for company.

This must be justice, Orla thought madly, for letting them both die. 

She patted her overcoat. Mercifully–or perhaps in a gesture of cruel irony–the single peach half was still in her pocket, smushed and bruised from being slept on. The thieves must not have wanted to go through her pockets and risk waking her. 

The peach half wouldn’t be enough to survive until she found the next Sunspot. But maybe it would be enough to trade for a spot in Sun City. With as much dignity as she could muster, Orla slipped out of the tavern unnoticed. 

It was a short walk to the Sun City entrance. Orla wandered toward it, repeating the false mantra that the peach half would be enough. She would get in. She would be out of the open, and she would see Kieran again. 

Arriving at the foot of the mountain, Orla no longer believed her own lies. A massive line of downtrodden, rain-soaked pilgrims snaked through the entire mountain pass, filling the Bog Road as far as Orla could see. Many of them were from towns and had never ventured a foot into the desolate plains of the bog; Orla could tell by the way they hunched together, glancing at their feet every few seconds for preying nettle vines. She scanned the fearful faces for Kieran and did not find him.

Maybe he’s already inside, Orla hoped.

Just visible through the drizzle, a yellow-robed sentinel sat at a table before the massive doors carved into the mountain, inspecting each petitioner’s tribute and turning them all away. 

A woman carrying a basket of brown eggs left in tears. A man brandishing a bag of damp turf screamed at the inspector until two additional guards were called to drag him away. Orla contemplated her solitary peach half. It was rarer than turf and eggs, but would it be enough? 

She faithfully held her spot in line, inching closer and closer to the doors with every crushed dream. Though hunger gnawed at her stomach, she refused even a drop of juice. 

To pass the dragging hours, she fiddled with her map, adjusting calculations with a grease pencil. She noted the sun’s previous stops, the sweet smell of rotting violets on the air, and the erratic patterns of wind rippling over the bog. With a start, Orla realized the sun would likely appear directly above Sun City in just a few hours.

If there were a sun in the sky, it would have risen and set by the time Orla reached the doors, which were taller than the trees that grew in the Sunspot. Cast in intricately carved brass, the doors depicted thousands of sun and plant motifs adorned with yellow, red, and orange jewels, just like the one in Orla’s medallion. She wondered if the salesman had plucked his wares from a hidden corner. 

“Next!” the inspector called, his voice carrying through the rain. Only two people stood between Orla and her shot at paradise.

A woman carrying a basket of carded wool was turned away. 

“Next!” 

The inspector turned away a young boy with nothing, though gently. 

“Next!” 

Orla took a shaking breath and approached the inspector’s table, shielded by a canvas tent. Silently, Orla pulled her peach half from her pocket, placing the overripe fruit on the table before him. It looked even more bruised and pathetic than it had that morning. 

He examined the offering, his face set in a tight frown. He handed it back to Orla, shaking his head. 

“Anything else?”

Orla’s stomach dropped to the bottom of the bog. This had been her one chance to shelter from the bog forever and find Kieran, and she had squandered it by simply forgetting to lock the door. The guard motioned for the next person, but Orla didn’t move. She could feel the crowd behind her growing agitated, clouds condensing before a nasty storm. 

The inspector cocked his head, infuriatingly sympathetic. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s just not enough.”

“It has to be,” Orla choked out. Her mind reeled, imagining herself alone on the Bog Road with nothing but danger for miles. “Someone stole my bag. I had so much more–”

“Maybe next time.” 

“I can get more,” Orla pleaded, thinking desperately quick. She spread out the wax paper map of her calculations, hastily wiping off fragments of fruit pulp that would be priceless anywhere else. 

“Look.” She jabbed a finger at the line drawing she completed just before stepping up to the stand. “The sun should appear just above this city-” 

Orla paused. She folded the map, heart thrumming. Confidence pulsed through her veins, and an even deadlier poison: hope. “If you let me in, I’ll tell you when.” 

The inspector studied the map, his brow furrowed. “How do I know this is real?” 

“How else would I have gotten this?” Orla said, raising the peach.

The man looked conflicted and only half-convinced. He turned to the door and knocked. 

The sound reverberated as if the hollowed-out mountain were made of tin. A small hatch opened, and a wizened face peered through.

“Find Áine,” the inspector commanded. “We’ve got another Sun Smuggler.”

#

Orla stood alone in the Sun City's antechamber, dripping onto the floor. 

The room was narrow, but with ceilings so high, Orla couldn't see them. The room's blackness was not an abyss but a mirror, reflecting the light from thousands of small niches that pockmarked the walls. Each alcove contained a single glass jar in which bioluminescent insects glowed. Fluttering against their transparent cages, the creatures cast the cavern in with dancing technicolor lights, like stained glass windows on a cloudy day. The city was eerie, in the way all closed worlds tended to be.

As she waited for the mysterious Áine, Orla ruminated on the guard's behavior. Sun Smuggler, he had called her. It sounded like an insult, but still, he had let her in. Had Kieran traded his maps, too? Did the guard call him a Sun Smuggler as well? 

Orla's thoughts were interrupted by the soft sound of bare feet padding against the stone floors. A woman, thin and pale as a specter, stopped several yards away from Orla. 

"You must be Áine," Orla said, cringing at the hoarse echo of her voice in the silent hall. 

The woman made no reply. She simply adjusted the yellow shawl draped over her bony shoulders, turned, and gestured for Orla to follow.

Orla walked close behind the ghost-woman, presumably Áine, through Sun City's cavernous halls, tripping over her feet, as she was unaccustomed to the darkness. Sun City was supposed to be paradise, the one dry place left in the world, the one place the bog couldn’t reach. But Orla found its gloomy darkness suffocating. Surprising herself, she briefly longed for the vast openness of the Bog Road. 

At least she was out of the rain. She was afraid, and bruised from bumping into walls, but she was dry.

"How many people live here?" Orla asked when the mist-thick silence became unbearable.

Áine turned to face Orla.  "Enough," she replied after a moment, climbing a staircase carved into the rock. "Enough live here. Too many would offend the Sun. Too few couldn't tempt it." 

Orla quirked an eyebrow. "You speak of the sun as if it has feelings."

Áine shrugged, another unsettling silence falling between them. Orla tried not to read too much into it; anyone raised inside a mountain was bound to be at least a little strange. 

They passed through the halls in silence until finally, suddenly, the two women reached an arched doorway, the space behind concealed by a curtain of vines. Áine paused before the threshold, smiling, her sharp, moon-bright teeth glinting in the darkness like those of a cave creature.

"Welcome," she said, pulling back the tendrils, "to Sun City."

With the tingling sensation of stepping on sacred ground, Orla passed through the archway.

Before her stretched a towering atrium as tall as the mountain itself. Rows of carved halls spiraled from the very top of the mountain all the way to the floor several hundred feet below, a dizzying drop. Moving as if in a trance, Orla stepped to the edge and peered over. 

The atrium was far brighter than the tunnels. In the center of the ceiling was a massive opening in the stone through which rain poured into a deep pool below, a perfect, symmetrical circle carved into the floor. From the pool projected twelve thin stone slabs, like spokes on a wheel or the face of a clock. 

Or, Orla realized belatedly, like the rays of the sun.

Tiny figures dressed in the same sun-yellow robes as Áine glided in and out of openings in the stone, stark spots of color against the rock. They passed through archways, up and down stairwells, and circumambulated the pool at the bottom like monks in silent prayer. 

"Come," Áine commanded. "There is much to show you." 

Orla followed Áine again with greater trepidation. Sun City had been her dream, her constant companion on the countless damp nights alone on the Bog Road. But being inside, she sensed great danger; she would trade the bounty of a thousand Sunspots to leave. 

But not until she found Kieran.

Orla listened intently to Áine’s explanations of the vast mushroom farms that provided the city's food and hidden pastures of sun-yellow sheep, which provided the city's cloth. She pointed to arches leading to libraries where diviners studied the sun and predicted its path. 

"Are we going inside?" Orla asked excitedly. That’s where Kieran had to be, tucked away and studying the sun.

"Oh no," Áine replied. "No, there is something we need to do first."

Orla's skin pricked again; the elusiveness, the silence, gave her the impression that she was in danger. Or perhaps she was simply unused to the feeling of dry skin. She patted the knife in her pocket.

They continued, down, down, closer and closer to the pool below, until finally, Orla's feet landed lightly on the floor of the mountain. She craned her neck; the mountain's peak was so far above them, the oculus nothing but a tiny dot of light.

Áine took Orla's hand and led her toward the pool, which was hard to see through the rings of yellow-robed people slowly walking around it. Orla wanted to pull away, but Áine's hand was dry, drier than anything Orla had felt in years, and, against her better judgment, she held on tightly. 

The crowds stilled and began to part. Áine and Orla walked closer to the pool, right to the edge. 

"This is the Pool of Darkness," Áine whispered softly. 

Orla began to shake. The pool was not filled with water, as she had thought, but with rotting bog, a deep well leading to the underworld. And the slabs of stone radiating from it were not decorative. Nor were they empty. 

Laying on each stone, reposed as if in sleep, was bog body. There were eleven in all, some fresher than others. Their skin was leathery yet perfectly preserved, their faces frozen in grimaces, their clean hair arranged neatly as if prepared for a wake. Orla fought back bile that rose unbidden to her throat, acid and hot. 

Resting on the stone farthest from her was a body with a shock of white hair. Though he was wearing the yellow robes of the Sun City, Orla knew immediately it was the old man. The one she let die. 

And beside him was Kieran.

Orla sunk to her knees.

A month in the bog had changed Kieran. His thin frame was now skeletal, his skin waxy and stretched tight over his bones. But it was him.

In a way, Kieran had kept his promise. He met her in Sun City. 

"Each of these bodies was a Sun Smuggler, like you," Áine said softly. "They thought they could track the Sun, learn its secrets. But in doing so, they kept it from us. Chased it away. Once we add your body to the Pool of Darkness, the Sun will shine over Sun City forever." 

Orla swallowed hard. They were wrong, she knew. The sun was flighty. Her death wouldn't bring them light. 

But there were hundreds of them and only one of her. She had nothing left to bargain with, no plants or calculations. And Kieran was dead. 

The yellow-robed people of Sun City joined hands, circling the Pool of Darkness and pushing Orla toward the empty slab.

"Please," Áine pleaded. "It's time."

There was nothing left for her. Obediently, Orla walked across the slab to her death, the sun medallion swinging around her neck. 

And she stepped into the bog.

The moment the dark waters closed around her ankles, the sun began to inch over the oculus like an eclipse. 

"Look!" screamed Áine, feral delight contorting her features. She and the rest of the city fell to their knees, raising their arms to the heavens. 

The Pool of Darkness began to bloom, thorny plants and twisted flowers shooting rapidly, snaking up the mountain with frightening speed, twisting around Orla’s legs. She pulled at the plants, desperately trying to free herself.

"Finally!" Áine shrieked, tears streaming down her face like the rain she had never felt. A vine of ivy snaked around her upraised arms, rooting her in place, but she hardly noticed.

The sun reached its full arc above the city, just as Orla had predicted. Fumbling with her knife, she freed herself from the thorny plants and scrambled back onto the stone slab that held Kieran’s body.

As soon as the sun covered the oculus with bright, blinding light, the people of Sun City, accustomed to a life of darkness and shadows, began to burn, their skin blistering as the sun filled the open space. There were no shadows, no place to hide. 

“No!” Áine cried, pawing with blistered hands at the flowering vines dragging her into the bog. “It wasn’t supposed to be this way!” 

The two women locked eyes, Áine’s desperately pleading. But Orla shook her head. For the second time, she allowed the bog to take its prize.

From her spot beside Kieran’s body, Orla watched as the plants dragged the citizens of Sun City, screaming and burning, into its depths. 

As quickly as it arrived, the sun passed, and Orla was once again alone with the rain.