Mt. Ursula by Tara Grier (New Jersey, 22)

Beatrice McCoy had lived next to a volcano for all eighty-two years of her life, and she was almost certain it was never going to erupt. 

Mt. Ursula had been dormant long before Beatrice was born, and she expected it to remain that way long after her bones were laid to rest under the dirt and moss that made up her home. When she was a little girl, she’d stay up, staring out her window where she could see the volcano’s peak in the distance. She used to worry about it waking suddenly, destroying her beloved town with ash and smoke. When she expressed her concerns to her mother, she’d smooth down her hair and assure her Ursula was fast asleep. 

“Everything is just fine, bumble Bea,” she’d tell her. “You’re safe.” 

Despite her skepticism in her earlier years, Beatrice had formed a bond with the sleeping volcano. She no longer saw Mt. Ursula as a threat, but as a friend watching over them, a reassuring presence. 

So when the TV flashed the evacuation warning that morning, Beatrice went about her usual routine without so much as a pursing of her lips or a creased brow. She walked into the kitchen, spooned her coffee grounds into the filter, and reveled in the sound of it brewing. The slow drip turned to a steady stream as it filled her favorite mug—though it was chipped now, she could never bring herself to use another. Lenny had gotten it for her for their 10th anniversary. ​

“Mornin’, doll,” Lenny’s voice tickled her ear. His arms snaked around her waist as her eyes blinked open and she breathed in deeply before holding it in her chest, something she often did, as if she could live in a moment forever if she was still enough, convinced she could manipulate time. Beatrice turned to face her husband’s coffee-stained smile, then pressed a soft kiss against the scruff of his chin. 

“Happy anniversary,” she said. “10 years…” 

“Time has flown by,” Lenny agreed. 

“I was going to say you’re lucky I’ve managed to put up with you this long,” Bea teased, and Lenny’s arms tightened around her body. 

Her husband chuckled. “Luckiest man alive,” he agreed dutifully. 

Bea fixed her coffee the way she always had, a splash of cream and two sugars. As she walked to her front door, the floors groaned under her steps like a greeting. Waiting outside was the daily paper. She stepped out briefly to pick up the rolled-up bouquet of black and white. Overhead, the sky had gone unnaturally dark, as if ink had spilled over the clouds. Out past her front yard, cars were being packed frantically: duffels stuffed into trunks, squirming children being strapped into seats. Some houses already appeared vacant, families long-gone as they fled Ursula Springs. The town had always been a quiet place, just as Beatrice liked it. They weren’t like the big cities her children had run off to. They were a community. 

“Mrs. McCoy!” Justine, who’d moved next door to Beatrice five years earlier—just after Lenny passed—called from her yard. She, like the rest of the neighborhood, was packing her car with the essentials. “Mrs. McCoy, do you need help? There’s been an evacuation notice.”

Bea smiled kindly at her neighbor. “Oh, don’t trouble yourself with me. I’ll be right behind you, hon.” 

Justine took a few steps in the direction of Beatrice’s house so she wouldn’t have to shout to be heard. “Are you sure? I could have the boys come over and help you pack anything you need,” she offered, referring to her two children. One had just started high school that Fall, Beatrice remembered. The other boy, just a few years younger, spent his days following the eldest around. It reminded Beatrice of her own kids when they were growing up. 

“Mommy!” Miles whined, his tiny arms wrapping around his mother’s leg. “I’m tired.” Beatrice smiled and patted her youngest’s head. That had been her intention exactly—tire the kids out with a walk after dinner for an easy bedtime routine. She lifted her son into her arms and he buried his face into her shoulder, tickling her chin with his head of blond hair that resembled dandelion seeds. 

She looked ahead at her daughter, Ophelia, as she skipped ahead of them. Lenny walked beside her and knelt down as she tried to show him something in the grass. “Bea! Come on over here! Ophelia found a ladybug,” he called back to them, real enthusiasm in his voice. 

Beatrice quickened her pace and let her daughter show her the ladybug. They all sat in the grass for some time after, their feet in need of rest. They watched the sun set over Mt.Ursula, spilling over the sky like pink lemonade. Miles fell asleep in Beatrice’s arms, but Ophelia kept herself awake with questions. 

“Mommy,” she prompted, pointing at the volcano’s peak. “What’s that?” 

“That is Mt. Ursula,” Beatrice told her, “A volcano. She watches over the town. She protects us.” 

“Wow,” Ophelia’s eyes widened. Even when she yawned, she didn’t take her eyes off of Mt.Ursula.

Beatrice was still flipping through the pages of the Ursula Springs Times, noting headlines such as “Ursula Elementary School’s Fundraiser Event Goes Awry”—the soft pretzel stand ran out of mustard—and “Ray’s Supermarket Celebrates 50 Years”—Bea still remembers when it first opened. Her eyes glanced over the article about Mt. Ursula’s increased activity. Next to her, the last of her coffee sat at the bottom of her mug like raindrops stuck to a window. She popped a hard candy in her mouth from the dish on her coffee table to balance out the bitterness that rested on her tongue. 

The shrill ringing of her landline interrupted her peace, and she set her newspaper aside before standing and walking over to the phone, in no particular rush. 

“Hello?” 

“Mom,” Ophelia was on the other end. Her voice was tight and a pitch higher than normal, or at least what Beatrice remembered as normal. It had been a while. “God, what are you still doing there? Didn’t you see the evacuation notice?” 

“I’m on my way out,” Beatrice told her daughter. “Don’t you worry. I was just about to leave when I heard the phone ringing.” 

Beatrice heard a rush of static as her daughter let out a relieved breath. “Good. Alright. I don’t want to hold you up, then. Will you call me when you’re somewhere safe?” The worry in her daughter’s voice was almost enough to make Bea start packing a bag. For the first time all day, there was a stitch of guilt in her carefully woven end. Unfortunately, Beatrice knew it wouldn’t be enough. She couldn’t abandon Ursula. 

“Yes,” she promised her daughter anyway. “I love you, Phee.”

“I love you too, Mom. I’m sorry that I’ve been—” she paused, and Beatrice could picture her daughter picking at the skin around her nails the way she always did when she was nervous. “Just make sure you get somewhere safe.” 

Beatrice had never felt safe anywhere but Ursula Springs. 

“I will, sweetheart. Like I said, don’t you worry.” 

They hung up, and moments later, Beatrice received the same call from her son. Her children had always been like that, in an unknown synch, whether they wanted to admit it or not. Beatrice had always been in awe of it, never having siblings herself. Being an only child had its perks, but there was an inherent loneliness that festered in her. 

The house was quiet, Beatrice noted, in a way that it had never been quiet before. It was also hers in a way that it never had been before. With both of her parents gone now, she had the space to herself until she could fill it with children of her own. 

The house was a museum of sorts—proof of the lives that were lived, the stories there were to be told, and the history that was made. The creaky step her father never got around to fixing and the kitchen table with the leg that always wobbled served as fossils to approximate how they’d once lived. Her father’s hat still hanging from the coat hanger next to her mother’s jacket became relics to be studied. The photo albums piled in the attic read like encyclopedias. 

Beatrice tidied up the parlor, arranging the books on the coffee table as her mother would. Then she prepared her dinner, humming along to the same song her father would. When it was time for bed, she imagined they were still just in the other room, but it was hard to manage without the sound of deep snoring she’d fallen asleep to since she was a baby. It was an impossibly lonely time.

Still, looking out her window and toward Mt. Ursula, she somehow felt less alone. She remembered her mother’s promise that Ursula would watch over her. 

With that thought, she was finally able to fall asleep. 

Beatrice didn’t feel that kind of bone-deep loneliness again until after her children left and Lenny had taken his last breath. She confided in Ursula, then, too. Never truly alone. 

It had been some time since Beatrice picked up her knitting needles. She’d been knitting a scarf for Miles a few months ago, as he had planned to visit. When he canceled unexpectedly—something came up—she’d abandoned the project. Now, though, her fingers itched for her needles and yarn. So, she turned off the television, ignoring the screen that flashed with an update about her dear Ursula: she was to erupt within a couple of hours, before the sun even set. Beatrice pulled out her old basket and sat back in the same worn chair her mother had knitted in. It was her voice in Beatrice’s mind as she made herself comfortable and tied a slipknot around her needle. 

“Loop one.” 

Bea sat on her mother’s knee, watching as she wove the beginnings of a blanket, what would be her blanket. It seemed like magic, the way she could turn simple yarn into something so patterned and beautiful. 

“How big do you think it should be?” Mama asked, and Beatrice kicked her dangling feet as she contemplated. She’d seen her mother make scarves, sweaters, hats, and mittens. Blankets were larger projects, so they were a rarer occurrence. But it was all Beatrice had wanted for her seventh birthday.

“This big,” Beatrice stretched both of her arms out wide, her fingers extended as far as they would go. Mama chuckled. She started on a purl stitch and looked up while her fingers continued to work like they were their own entity. 

“That’s pretty big,” she noted. 

“We could use all the yarn,” Beatrice spoke as if she was having the most genius idea that had ever occurred to someone. “We could make a blanket that would cover the entire world.” 

Again came Mama’s warm laughter. “Oh, Bumble Bea, that would take an awfully long time.” 

Beatrice was too young to understand that things were temporary. She thought they could all be like Ursula, standing tall, forever immortalized. 

Beatrice looped her stitches carefully, her fingers knowing the sequence well. They moved in a steady rhythm, like the sound of the washing machine as it hummed in the background or the drip of the leaky roof in the guest room. Beatrice had always been fascinated by the concept of rhythm, of falling into a repetition until it became second nature; woven into your DNA as the yarn in her son’s unfinished scarf. She found that as her body got used to certain sounds and activities, it was once accustomed to other people too, people who were a part of her one day and gone the next. 

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Beatrice whispered into Lenny’s ear. They’d snuck out of the house after all the children had fallen fast asleep, desperate for just a few moments alone. They walked all the way through town—it was always empty and quiet at night—toward Mt.Ursula. Beatrice looked up at the volcano with an awe that was usually reserved for children’s wonder. The ragged terrain that made up the volcano was an abstract sculpture, decorated with green moss. At the very top, they could spot the gaping hole at its peak. Waiting. From the top seeped a sort of mist, like the fizz from a popped-open soda can. 

“Sure is, doll,” Lenny agreed, his fingers finding hers in the dark. They laced them together, a perfect fit. Their hearts beat together, a steady rhythm. “Though, I think our Ursula has some competition in the beauty department.” 

Beatrice took her eyes off of the volcano for just long enough to meet her husband’s soft gray eyes. She rolled her eyes at him but leaned her head against his shoulder. The night was particularly special or uncommon, but that night, Beatrice felt she was where she was meant to be. In Lenny’s arms, her children were safe and fast asleep, being watched over by Ursula. That was what belonging felt like. 

Beatrice moved row to row, even loops knitted into the baby-blue scarf. She would be grateful to have it. The sun was beginning to move down the sky, and it would be cold soon. She finished the scarf, long and soft, and hung it on the coat rack on her way into the kitchen. There, she prepared the last meal she’d ever eat. It was nothing fancy. Despite her best efforts, Beatrice was never much of a cook. Still, it would fill her belly and keep her warm. That’s what mattered. 

The last meal they all shared had been a short one. It was Christmas, six years before. Both children made it for the holiday, and though Lenny’s condition was worsening, he put on a good show. Beatrice tried to go all out, a real feast for her family. This ended, as any of them could have predicted, with a burnt ham, spoiled sides, and an angry smoke alarm. That wasn’t a surprise so much as Beatrice’s tears had been. 

While Miles and Ophelia, along with their respective spouses, laughed and frantically waved the drifting smoke away from the smoke detector, Beatrice burst into tears and ran to her and Lenny’s shared room. She hadn’t felt so childish in years, but the disappointment of the ruined meal had consumed her. 

Lenny followed. He always followed. 

“Aw, doll, don’t be upset,” he sat down on the perfectly-made bed, and the blanket creased. 

“I wanted everything to be perfect,” Beatrice cried into her husband's arms. “Who knows when we’ll all be gathered together again? Gosh, all of those years of family dinners, taking for granted our time together…” 

“It always seems like we took it for granted in retrospect,” Lenny held her close. “But we were grateful for it, even back then. We were.” 

When they returned to the kitchen, they found their children preparing a new meal—Ophelia chopping carrots, Miles stirring a pot. Lenny and Beatrice slipped in and joined easily, like new parts to a well-oiled machine. The cogs spun perfectly, and that night they ate their simple dinner of carrots, peas, and bean soup. They laughed around the table, the house as full as it would ever be. 

It was the best meal Bea had ever had. 

​Beatrice finished her soup first, not wanting it to go cold. When she took her last spoonful of carrots and peas, she washed it down with a glass of water. With her thirst quenched and her body well-fed, she took one last lap around the house. Her fingers grazed the spot next to the kitchen wall where they’d marked Ophelia and Miles’ heights. She watched the clock above the sofa in the living room that had broken years ago, but she never bothered fixing it, so it was left forever stuck in time. She ran her fingers over the sheets she’d shared with Lenny that she could never bring herself to get rid of. 

When she finished her farewell to the home she’d lived and loved in, she walked out the door—her shoes scraping against the years-old welcome mat—and stepped outside for the last time. She sat on her porch steps, the same way she did as a little girl waiting for her father to come home from work; the same way she did when she waited for her children to return from school. 

She waited now, for the end to come. She wasn’t scared. She had Ursula with her. Beatrice watched as smoke rose and ash fell over her Ursula Springs. The ash coated the town like it was tucking it into bed. At last, a blanket big enough to cover the whole world.




Tara Grier is a recent graduate of Rowan University’s Masters of Writing Arts Program. While in the program, she worked as an adjunct writing professor through the Teaching Experience Program (TEP) and continues to teach in the First Year Writing Program post-graduation. She is a first-place winner of the Denise Gess Award for Fiction. She has a passion for all storytelling but has a particular affinity for speculative fiction. ​