When I boarded the plane at RDU, the world was twenty-five below freezing.

I couldn’t wait to see my long-distance girlfriend of six months.

I also couldn’t bother to check the weather app for my destination.

When I disembarked in Orlando two hours later, the blazing sun caught me and my multiple jackets completely off guard.

Seventy degrees? In January?

That had to be illegal.

My quick jaunt between Robert Frost’s apocalypses made me feel like Paul Atreides in Dune, minus the prophecies and the improvisational sand-dancing.

But a year later, this North Carolina kid packed up and moved to heat-wave-ridden Disney World country.

It was worth it. She was worth it.

And now, a decade after my temperature-induced culture shock, you know what’s funny?

We just moved back to North Carolina in time for a massive snowstorm.*

Sixteen-year-old street thief Safran knows that kind of culture shock. She’s used to freezing in the Marrow Street tenements with her little brother, dreaming of the sun’s warmth.

Now she’s traveling the scorching deserts of Salaman in search of the ruby relic that will finally get the Order of Death off her back.

But she’s not the only one searching.

Follow the Kickstarter campaign to join Safran’s quest in Stories That Bleed!

Live ferociously. Don’t die.

Addison

*I’m being REALLY generous with the word “snowstorm.” And the word “massive.”

P.S.: NC folks can find me at Folk & Fable in Cary this Saturday, Jan. 31, from 2–4 pm! 240 Crossroads Boulevard Cary, NC 27518