After Tangles and Knots, Snarls and Combs. Stranded World has a landing page here.

Autumn took a long, hot shower, paying for a motel room to do it in, taking the time and the soap and a brush from the dollar store. It was the end of Faire season. It was the end of her and Tatters, and she still hadn’t quite processed that. It was… it was time to clean up all the old marks.

She washed every piece of ink off of her skin, scrubbed the skin raw where the ink had stained, washed herself until she felt, should she do more, she would have to start quoting MacBeth.

She dressed herself in clothes cleaned every bit as thoroughly although, because it had been at the laundromat, with slightly less soliloquy. She left her van with a friend she still trusted, rented the smallest car she could find, and started driving.

It did not occur to her until quite some time later that she was running away. But, skin bare of connections, clothing bare of scents and memories, she had detangled herself from both the heartache and the embarrassment and now she felt she just had to keep going until the strands shook loose from her.

When she reached the Pacific, she finally felt as if she could breathe again.

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