Should We Drown in Feathered Sleep

A new world is emerging years after war destroyed society. In a Minnesota lake, the last surviving loons, direct descendants of the legendary First Pair, await the one who can help heal the earth. Each year a human sacrifice is brought to them to be endowed with special gifts, but they come at a terrible price.

Even as the rest of the world rebuilds, Grace Kriske's life is shattered. Unable to walk, she feels utterly dependent on her family and trapped in a community that disapproves of her rebellious ways. Grace's only solace is her lover, David Tvedt, a trader who wants to take her away with him—if she'd let him.

Yet something else calls to Grace—the loons. They haunt her dreams, lurking in her mind as if part of her deepest primal self. But when Grace is chosen as the new sacrifice, she's afraid. Will she risk everything to help the community that shuns her, or will she choose her own path?

Michael Merriam has sold science fiction, fantasy, and horror short fiction to several magazines and anthologies, including Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, Bards and Sages Quarterly, Northern Lights: 20 MinnSpec Tales and Ruins: Terra. He received an Honorable Mention in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 2008 and is a two-time semifinalist in the Writers of the Future contest.

Like most writers, Michael has worked a variety of odd jobs over the years, including as a musician, short-order cook, freight logistics manager and the booking agent for a puppet troupe. In 2003, after being laid off and declared legally blind, Michael began writing again, rekindling a passion he had set aside nearly two decades earlier.

Michael reads slush for Fantasy Magazine and is a member of the Science Fiction Poetry Association and the Minnesota Speculative Fiction Writers. He lives in Hopkins, Minnesota, with his wife and an ordained cat. Visit his homepage at michaelmerriam.net.