Prayers clung to her throat, a hot lump of hope and hopelessness. She’d prayed before, years ago, but she’d given up on gods and goddesses and grand plans for the universe.

She swallowed hard, forcing the prayer into her center where somebody’s–anybody’s–deity might take it seriously.

“Please, just let him live.”

A one-time teen mother and high school dropout, Larina Warnock holds a doctorate degree and is an educator in rural Oregon where she lives with her husband, three dogs, and a turtle older than she is.