Preview: The Myth of the West

Since January 2021, I've been serializing an East-Meets-Western novel through my story subscription program. The Myth of the West is about Mira Wang, a young mind reader, who must use her abilities as she survives on the road and evades a mysterious presence known as The Sheriff. A fabulist adventure with western motifs, The Myth of the West incorporates themes I’ve learned from my upbringing at a martial arts school. This project was a selected quarterfinalist in the Screencraft Cinematic Novel contest.

Each month I share a new installment of The Myth of the West with subscribers. Here's an excerpt:

The car stopped in front of a house: white with lace curtains in the windows, framed with black shutters, and a red front door. A row of flowering shrubs matched the landscaping of the other houses in the neighborhood, the kind of neighborhood where all the streets were named on theme. Here, it was trees—Mulberry, Hickory, Elm. They parked at 137 Willow Street.

It was a day like any other. Another sales call at a quaint house in a charming suburb, then back on the road, to a different city with another charming suburb and more sales calls at other quaint houses. Mira Wang didn’t know it would be the last time she’d see her father. 

Perhaps, if she had known, she wouldn’t have gotten into an argument with him:

“But why can’t I drive?”

It was a recent debate—she had just turned 16—but already they each had a script to follow.  

“Nothing would make me happier than the opportunity to be a horrified passenger to my teenage daughter, but until you exhibit more self-control, it would be ill-advised.”

“Would not.”

“The incident last Thursday suggests otherwise.”

“That won’t happen again.”

“Of course it won’t, because you will not drive until you are ready.”

“I am ready.”

“Until I say you’re ready.”

“So I have to just sit here while you’re in your meeting.”

“Yes.”

“Did you see the arcade?” Mira attempted a new tactic. Her father was strict, but enjoyed games as much as she did—he was drawn to the simplicity of Space Invaders and Pac-Man while Mira opted for the chaos of pinball or games of chance that issued tickets she could exchange for a prize guarded in a florescent display case—and they often stopped at arcades.  

“I hadn’t noticed.”

“I could go check it out, while you’re in your meeting, and see if it’s any good. That way we don’t waste any time later, if we need to get back on the road.”

Mira thought she sounded reasonable, responsible. 

“Ah, well, with that high-quality enrichment, we should re-consider.”

“Really?”

“No. Stay in the car. Silence your mind. I won’t be long.”

“This sucks.”

“Don’t curse.”

“What was the point of showing me how to drive then?”

Samuel was a patient man, but the persistence of a teenage girl was almost beyond his capacity. He explained again, “You need to go back, practice the basics—control yourself—then you can start driving again.”

“I can’t do anything.”

“You,” Samuel chuckled and smiled in that way parents do when they understand more than their child. “You can do more than most.”

“Then why doesn’t it feel that way?”

Mira sulked in the front seat, arms crossed, scowl on her face. Then, she turned the argument around: “Why are you acting so weird today?”

“Mirabelle,” he started, turning towards her as he prepared a brief lecture. Mira watched a shadow pass across her father’s eyes, like clouds moving across an open field, shaped like a lone figure.  

“What was that?”

Samuel furrowed his brow and the shadow faded like the sun came out again. He told her, “Stay out of my head.”

“Stay out of my life.”

Samuel raised an eyebrow. 

They both knew this outburst proved his point, she lacked self-control. 

“Stay here.” He opened the door, buttoning his suit jacket as he stepped out of the car. He leaned down to tell Mira, “Be good.”

Perhaps, if Mira knew this would be the last time she’d see her father, she would have put aside her petty teenage angst to look out the front passenger window and etch this last memory into her mind: his steady gait as he pulled a rolling suitcase filled with cleaning supplies. Maybe she would have pulled him away from the red front door. Or maybe she would have tried to see who was opening it on the other side. 

Instead: Mira sunk into the passenger seat. She looked up at the fluffy clouds in the blue sky. She pushed the dashboard vents with her sneakered toe. The cold a.c. breezed across her face. 

This was life. 

Life was the road. Life was rest stops and a cooler with a jar of smooth peanut butter and wheat bread, two canteens—one of coffee, one of juice. It was two suitcases in the trunk with a carton of industrial cleanser for home use, which Samuel sold door-to-door.

Mira waited in the car while her father stepped into living rooms to show prospective customers the effectiveness of his products. He demonstrated how one’s life could change with this simple solution. How they could keep a clean house, keep whites whiter, carpets fresher, couches odor-free. How, with this newfound freedom, they could spend more time with family or entertaining friends. They could step into the lives they always wanted to live, become the version of themselves they always wanted to be. 

Mira and her father did not have their own home that required tending, no chores to obstruct their dreams. They stayed in towns for such a short time they mostly lived in motels with names like broken promises, Oasis Inn and Bright Morning Resort. Mira watched the world from balconies overlooking bean-shaped pools with turquoise water and rusty, sun-bleached furniture. Overnight stops for tired truckers and lonely travelers and families, like them, living somewhere in between. Places people ignored as they coasted across the highway to more important places in their more important lives. 

When she was small, Mira asked her father, “Why can’t we be normal?”

“Who says we aren’t normal?”

“We don’t live like they do on TV.”

“No one lives like they do on TV.”

“Not even the customers?”

“Especially the customers.”

What Mira had yet to learn—what Samuel had prevented her from learning—was when her father stepped into these homes, he was not drinking decaf coffee with housewives, coaxing them into a sale. In his briefcase was a menu of lethal weapons: sharp blades and a blunt club and a silenced revolver. But it was often easiest to complete the job with his quick hands. The cleaning products removed the bloodstains from the couches and carpets. There were solutions used to dissolve bodies in bathtubs.

He emerged from each house, tipping his hat. They’d get back on the road and in not too long people would begin to wonder what happened to their friend, their neighbor, their co-worker. By the time the investigation was in full swing, Samuel and Mira would be on the road. 

Samuel made people disappear, but his most successful disappearing act was him and Mira.

Fluffy clouds in a blue sky. A sunny day in a perfect neighborhood, a life that would always remain just out of reach. Mira sunk into the passenger’s seat. She pushed the dashboard vent with her sneakered toe. The cold a.c. breezed across her face. This was life. 

Life was boring. 

When she was younger, Mira read books or played Solitaire across the backseat, following her father’s rules: Stay in the car. Don’t talk to strangers. The rules were as much for the stranger’s safety as they were for Mira’s. 

 A ray of sunshine reached through the windshield Samuel kept sparkling clean, across the dashboard—the radio was under Mira’s jurisdiction—to the key resting in the ignition. There were no other keys on the ring, just a pair of red dice, glimmering in the sunlight. 

Mira climbed across the console and sat behind the wheel. She adjusted the seat from her father’s preferred setting, bringing her feet closer to the pedals. The view through the windshield was the same—Colonial houses with red brick pathways and curbside mailboxes under black iron lampposts—but it felt different. Driving was a small thrill Mira knew other people took for granted. 

Mira considered, briefly, her options—and the consequences. 

There was no curfew for her father to take away, no allowance to withhold, no extra chores to dole out. What punishment could he really enforce, when Mira already had nothing for him to take away? 

Maybe, she could prove to him that she’d be fine. 

Or, maybe she couldn’t, but at least she’d have a few minutes of fun. 

The truth Mira didn’t want to admit was she already knew what she would do—before she climbed into the seat, before her father’s stern warning, Be good, when she saw him leave the keys in the ignition. 

She started the engine. 

The Incident Last Thursday:

They were an hour outside of one city, on their way to the next, at a gas station surrounded by farmland. Samuel was filling the tank. Mira had gone inside to use the dirty and dimly lit restroom, and returned with Samuel-approved snacks, pretzel sticks and fruit leather and bottled water. 

“Your turn,” Samuel said, walking around the front of the car to the passenger’s seat.

“Really?”

Until then, Mira had only practiced on side streets and parking lots. But Samuel took the snacks and nodded for her to take the wheel. She darted around the car, jumped into the driver’s seat. 

“Just, take it easy.”

She took a breath and focused, still smiling, before starting the car. She merged onto the highway, flanked by green fields and lonely farmhouses, barns with broken roofs. Birds passed overhead, distant enough to be ink stains moving across the blue sky— 

—a burgundy coupe cut in front of her.  

Mira clenched the brakes to stop from hitting it. The car was filled with teenagers, her age. She could see their silhouettes dancing in their seats before the driver—a boy with stubble to make him look older so he can buy beer, dressed in a band t-shirt he wore the day before—dashed away, further, faster. 

“Don’t worry. Just keep your eyes on the road.”

Her father’s voice was a distant echo under the wind rushing through the open windows in the car as the kids sang along with the radio. Her attention had only wandered for a moment, wondering what it would be like to grow up in this county, to drive with friends instead of her father, to sing with the radio as they sped along roads to nowhere. She looked over her shoulder, but it was not her shoulder. She hadn’t been wearing a band t-shirt with the musk leftover from the day before. She touched her cheek and felt the stubble that made it easier to buy beer. She felt the hum of singing against her chest as the boy followed the song, oblivious to the fact he just cut off a girl driving with her dad. 

Mira blinked and she saw her hands on her steering wheel, the silence of her father’s car.

Blinked again and the kids in the car were looking at her. A voice from the backseat asked, “Dude, are you okay?”

“Mira,” her father snapped. “Focus.”

“Something’s wrong,” she said, but she couldn’t tell if it was her voice or if it belonged to the boy who cut her off. She heard screaming, felt hands cover her hands. She looked up at the sky, unable to stop the car from drifting into the next lane. The birds were gone. 

Twenty Minutes Later:

The gray parking lot of a roadside diner. Rain speckled on the window. The seatbelt dug into her shoulder. The engine was off, the car was quiet. Samuel returned with two styrofoam to-go boxes. “I got your favorite.”

Mira glanced over, too embarrassed to be hungry, but took her lunch.

“Utensils?”

Mira opened the glove box and passed him a set of silverware, which she had washed and wrapped in a paper towel at the last motel.

Samuel cut bites of his Denver omelette. Mira looked down at her waffle.

“Did I ever tell you about Tom Hibbs?”

This was how Samuel began his stories.

Mira didn’t answer.

“I met Tom when I was nineteen—not much older than those kids on the highway. Not much older than you. We worked together on this farm, this one summer. This guy—Hibbs, we called him—was the unluckiest dude I have ever met. You name it, it happened to Hibbs. Flat tires on his first day of work, food poisoning on prom night. He had no grace about it, either. Some people, this kind of stuff happens to them, and they get grateful for the good things in their lives. Or they learn from the experience. Or they get a good sense of humor. Hibbs complained the whole time we worked. Non-stop. Complain, complain, complain. It reached the point, I had to get away from him and started working on the other side of the field. Well, one day, the clouds got really dark and we knew a bad storm was coming—we had to get inside. And Hibbs was leading the way. So the crew got a front row seat when Tom Hibbs got struck by lightning.

“It was the brightest light I’d ever seen. You could smell his hair burning from thirty feet away. He told me later, the fly of his zipper got welded shut. I’ve seen some far-out stuff in my day”—(to this, Mira couldn’t help but roll her eyes)—“but this was unlike anything I’d ever seen. Until I saw it a second time.” 

“He got struck by lightning twice?”

“A week later. None of us could believe it. Even Hibbs was surprised. And scared. He was petrified of what would happen to him next. He figured, it’d be better to write his own ending, then wait and see what else life would dish out. He made plans. He bought a gun and went to the liquor store to pick up his favorite bourbon. You know what happened then?”

Mira shrugged.

“The liquor store got held up. Hibbs was too meek to harm anyone, but turns out, the robber was too—Tom waved his new gun and that was enough to scare the robber away. The clerk was so happy to be alive he reached behind the counter, unspooled scratch tickets like toilet paper, and shoved them into Tom’s hands. Tom Hibbs got into his car, took a swig of bourbon, and figured what the hell. He grabbed a penny out of the ashtray and started scratching. Turns out, one of those tickets was a winner. He walked away with a million dollars. It was just a matter of time before his luck turned around.”

Samuel had told her these stories all her life. Strange stories about the impossible becoming possible. Mira couldn’t always tell if they were real or imagined. 

“Those kids will be fine,” he assured her. “I know it’s hard, but someday, you’ll be able to control your skills.”

“Oh yeah,” her voice was flat, skeptical. “What’ll happen then?”

“Whatever you want.”

Four Days After That:

Mira cruised along Willow Street. She followed the curving streets and circled little roundabouts with statues of urchins and stone urns filled with flowers. She could hear the chatter on the radio, but her mind was quiet. 

The neighborhood side street emerged to a parkway, bare with a chain link fence dividing four lanes of fast traffic. She remembered the incident last Thursday, the cars sliding across the highway. Teenage voices screaming as she lost control of their car. Mira shut her eyes, blocking away the memory. When she stopped hearing their voices, she opened her eyes again and turned onto the parkway. 

She drove alongside all sorts of cars driven by all sorts of people, with every manner of thought in their mind, and Mira didn’t hear any of it. She rolled down the windows and let the wind sweep through her hair. So thrilled with herself for controlling her skills, she thought she might try to find the arcade. 

Waiting at a red light, she glanced at the dashboard clock. Her father would be in his meeting for another ten minutes. Maybe fifteen. Just enough time for her to find the arcade and play a game or two. She scanned the shopping centers that lined the parkway for any landmark that might tell her how to get to the arcade. None of them looked familiar—or, they all looked the same—indistinguishable from the ones they passed this morning. It occurred to her then, with a sinking feeling, she had no idea how to get back to Willow Street. 

A car honked behind her.

The light was green, but Mira didn’t know where to go. 

The car honked again. 

Mira moved through the intersection and pulled into a parking lot, trying to retrace her steps. 

“Do you need any help?” a woman leaned out the window of her SUV. Mira could smell the fresh linen scent of her car’s interior. Chunky bangles slid down the woman’s slender arm, she held the steering wheel like she just got back from a manicure. Her silver aviators were polished so clean Mira saw her reflection—two of her, one in each lens—looking small in her father’s car.

“No, thank you,” Mira said, looking away, knowing it was safer for the woman if she didn’t speak much more.

“I saw you hesitating back there in the intersection. It seemed to me like maybe you were lost.”

That was when Mira heard the silence. 

The cars searching for parking spots slowed to a crawl. The blackbirds returning to their nest were suspended in the air. The woman smiled kindly as she waited for Mira’s response. It was the first time Mira spoke to someone with a mind so quiet, other than her father. 

“Yeah, I need to get back to Willow Street.”

“Oh, that’s easy,” the woman said, and listed directions for Mira. 

Mira waved thanks. The woman rolled up her window, and the world got loud again. The cars zipped into open spots. The blackbirds darted back to their nest. Mira turned back on the road, ready to tell her father she did it. She controlled her emotions. She managed her abilities. She proved it’s possible to maneuver through the world on her own. When she returned to her father, she’ll make a case for longer outings, solo trips to the movies or the mall, errands on her own—ways for her to pitch in as they lived between cities. 

Mira could anticipate the conversation. She told herself to remain calm, to negotiate, and not get frustrated against her father’s structured rules, his measured responses, his stern expression. Then she remembered the lone figure that passed across his mind. A cold shadow like the slow smile of the woman with the silent mind. The woman seemed kind, but Mira felt an urgent need to warn her father about her. 

So concerned about returning to Willow Street, Mira didn’t notice her foot leaning into the gas pedal, or the speedometer’s steady rise, or the police cruiser perched on a side street, hidden behind a row of manicured hedges. 

A siren trailed behind her. Red and blue flashed in the rearview mirror. Mira clicked on her turn signal, then pulled over.

She waited.

How much time passes between the moment when a cop pulls you over and when they actually confront you? Mira knew it had only been a few minutes, but time stretched out longer, like she will be cemented to this spot. Like she’ll never be able to leave. 

The soft slam of a car door. Mira looked into the rearview mirror—not turning her head, just darting her eyes to the glass—and saw the police officer. He adjusted his belt, then approached the vehicle.

“Don’t panic,” she whispered to herself—which, as everyone knows, does nothing to prevent someone from panicking.

“License and registration.”

Mira didn’t move. She didn’t have a license. She didn’t even own a wallet. The name on her father’s registration wasn’t hers, and for some reason she questioned if it was even really his. 

She turned to the cop. 

He was neither young or old, but the age when light stubble grew across thinning skin. A few strands of gray touched his temples, but his eyes were bright. Mira met his gaze and could see what he saw: a teenage girl, roguish and thin with trouble in her eyes. A girl ready for adventure. A girl who couldn’t be trusted. 

Through his thoughts was a faint smell. Sunscreen and vanilla and campfire smoke. It smelled to him like summer—days like this, girls like her. 

Mira followed the smell through his memory until she found her: the cool girl who—inexplicably, miraculously—chose to hang out with him. She turns to smile at him, the wind blowing curls across her face, as they speed along back roads, under the canopy of tall forests. Her arms coil around his—swaddled in sweatshirts and legs bare—as they watch the stars come out above the lake. Campfire cracking, sunscreen still on her skin, her breath on his neck. 

Mira stood in his memory of summer mornings, heat rising from rich soil as he mowed lawns and pulled weeds and painted fences—hoping she would call, and telling himself, There’s no possible way she would want to hang out with me again—

—but then the phone would ring. 

And they’d be back in the car, driving beyond where they had gone the day before. 

Maybe it shouldn’t have come as a surprise when school resumed and she, looking up at him from her seat in the cafeteria, feigned they had spent those days together—hadn’t touched each other—and instead asked him, “Can I help you?”

The cafeteria was loud with the white noise of conversations and shouts in the kitchen and lunch ladies scooping peas and mashed potatoes, the cash register’s ring and slam. But even without the girl raising her voice, the tone cut through the cafeteria. People turned their heads. They stopped their conversations. Some pointed and laughed as he rushed out of the cafeteria. 

“Sorry,” Mira said, and as she weaved a story on the side of the road, she ran through his memory. She tore a napkin from a dispenser on a lunch table, grabbed a ball point pen from a girl who sat alone. Mira followed him as he walked, shoulders slumped, through the halls to his locker. The bell rang and he took his books and went to class. She scrawled a note—I’m sorry—into his locker—

—which he suddenly remembered as Mira finished her excuse, filled with promises and crafted to fit the new memory she created, a lock and key. 

The cop looked down at Mira, her eyes sincere and apologetic. 

“I’ll let you go with a warning,” he told her, then stepped away from her father’s car. 

Mira’s heart pounded hard as she let go of a steady breath. She shifted the car into Drive, and—careful to make sure she was following all the rules (Seatbelt? Check. Turn signal? Check) and returned to the neighborhood where the streets were named for trees.

She turned onto Willow Street. 

She felt the explosion before she heard it. An unnatural break in time and space shook through her, made her feel ill. When she opened her eyes, 137 Willow Street was wrapped in flames. Glass from the windows scattered across the lawn. Black plumes billowed from the ruptured house. 

Neighbors stepped out of their homes, stunned by the blaze, shouting for help. This kind of catastrophe wasn’t supposed to happen in places like this. 

Mira kept her foot on the brake. She didn’t loosen her grip on the wheel, it helped steady her shaking. 

A figure stepped through the smoke. A tall man with a steady gait, dressed in a suit. She shifted the car into park, moved into the passenger’s seat. She felt like a child again, wanting her father to assure her everything was okay as they drove away, far away, to some place safe. 

But the man wasn’t her father. It was someone else, someone she didn’t recognize, followed by men in black suits with slim black ties. Through the chaos of noise—sirens now crowded the streets—she heard their thoughts, a whisper in her ear:

Find the girl.

In the days to come, Mira will think about her choices—climbing behind the driver’s seat, pulling away from the house—choices made easy with the simple story she told herself: she had nothing left to lose. She will understand there were consequences more dire than any punishment enforced by her father. She’ll remember her last words to him—Get out of my life. 

The men approached the car. 

She scrambled across the console, back into the driver’s seat. She knew then, her father would never return. Mira had no choice but to start the car and get back on the road.

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