WINNER OF THE WINTER 2026 PROSE CONTEST
Jayson Hinrichsen
Her hair was darker than it had been in college. Nora was blonde then, but her ponytail was auburn now, and longer, poking through the gap below the passenger seat headrest. She was speaking quick French to Mael, who was driving. In the back seat, Julie ran a hand over her own hair, cropped just above the shoulders. She had cut it short a few years ago when she’d suddenly felt, as many do, that the locks swinging down her back were too childish. She arched her back to peel it away from the leather seat and felt her sweat-soaked shirt stay behind, glued to the upholstery. Mael’s car did not have air conditioning.
Nora turned around in her seat. “We’re nearly there. Sorry about the heat. I can’t believe how hot it’s been. Record-breaking, right Mael?”
“Yes, hot. Always it is hot at this time, but not so hot like this.”
Julie smiled — it was very much like Nora to apologize on behalf of the sun. So she was the same in that way at least.
They left the outskirts of Lyon behind, following the Soâne north through fields baked yellow, past large beech trees set back from the road. Looking out at the countryside, Julie felt the same surreality that had persisted since her arrival in Lyon the night before. Four months ago, she hadn’t seen or heard from Nora in over six years, and now she was in a Frenchman’s sweltering car after waking up in Nora’s tiny apartment, in Nora’s bed.
“Just like those beach trips, remember?” Nora had said as Julie ducked to avoid hitting her head on the bedroom’s slanted ceiling, “And you know I sleep like the dead, so feel free to toss and turn.”
Julie did remember — six or seven girls in a two-bedroom rental on the South Jersey coast, Friday to Sunday, with some friends relegated to the couch or the floor. Nora asleep in the bed beside her, unmoving on her back all night as if she was in a coffin.
Julie admired Nora’s steadfast determination to push through the awkwardness. “I’ll try not to thrash too much. And you’ll remember I run very hot, so, sorry about that.”
Luckily, Nora’s free-standing air conditioner, with the plastic tube leading out the sixth-floor window, seemed to work very well. Nora gave Julie a set of keys, which included one for the gate into the courtyard, one for the building, and two for the apartment door.
***
Mael pulled off the main road and stopped the car beside a public park. Julie could see a swingset and a merry-go-round, a wide, dry expanse of grass, and a walking path that led in what she thought was the direction of the river. The air was still hot, though cooler outside the car and outside the city, with a breeze so slight Julie thought it might be imagined. Nora started leading them toward a circle of benches beyond the playground.
“This is where the shrine was?”
“Approximately, yes,” Nora said, “At least somewhere nearby, definitely in Chatillon.” She handed Julie a piece of paper. “I’ll be speaking French, so I printed this for you.”
It was a block of single-spaced text titled Saint Guinefort: Changelings and the Holy Greyhound. Julie felt a surge of jealousy that Nora, a PhD student in folklore, was still writing things with such titles and spending the summer doing research, while Julie had carefully rationed her time off since January to allow for a ten-day trip in August. They had studied History together, after which Julie had finished law school as quickly as possible just to prove that she could and Nora had — well, Julie didn’t really know. After their graduation, Nora began making more and more decisions based on the whims of her boyfriend, who Julie liked less the longer Nora stayed with him. He wasn’t a terrible person, but he wasn’t kind. He was uninterested in nearly everything Nora said. She could do better. Julie wasn’t the only one who felt this — many of their friends thought he was self-absorbed, but Julie spoke the loudest. She told herself that she would want her friends to tell her, if the situation were reversed. Their phone calls got shorter until finally, Nora snapped. “It’s not weird to prioritize and defend your partner. Everyone does it. Please don’t call again.”
And then, just a few months ago, Julie got an email. I can’t believe how long it’s been, it said. I hope you are well. Nora was doing her degree (Finally, I know) and would be spending the summer doing research in France, and, in a way, it was all thanks to Julie! You went to that exhibit on medieval France and came back talking about Saint Guinefort, the dog saint. Remember? Julie did; she vaguely remembered the exhibit and the full story she’d looked up afterward, about the 13th-century knight who went out on a hunt near modern-day Lyon, leaving his baby asleep at home with the knight’s greyhound, Guinefort. When he got back, the child was missing, his bed overturned and the dog’s mouth covered in blood. The knight immediately killed Guinefort before finding his son, alive and hiding, and the corpse of a deadly snake covered in bites, flung across the room. Guinefort had saved the child’s life, the knight was wracked with guilt, etcetera. He built a shrine to his martyred dog and, over time, locals began to venerate Guinefort as a saint and protector of children.
This was the subject of Nora’s research on medieval French folklore. Julie emailed back, pleasantries and life updates, and told Nora she was happy to hear about the graduate degree. It’s funny, actually, I’m planning a trip this summer — taking my mom to France. She’s always wanted to go. Any recommendations for niche or unusual museums in Paris? Folklore, history, whatever. And, after Nora’s highly enthusiastic response, Julie found herself accepting an invitation to Lyon. Just for a weekend! So now she was here, at the site of Saint Guinefort’s shrine, in this park outside a small suburb where paint flaked off the rusted swing set and half-naked children played listlessly in a fountain during the hottest summer on record. Looking around, Julie hoped a few more people would show up to hear Nora’s talk on their local saint. Nora had mentioned that today, August 22, was the traditional feast day of Guinefort, although Julie doubted how many people in this town even knew that. Mael was moving through the playground and down the walking path, talking to park-goers and pointing at Nora. A small group had started to form around her, at the center of the circle of benches; a few older couples, and several dripping children dragged by their parents toward an educational opportunity.
Julie sat down on one of the benches as Nora began speaking. Mael returned and stood slightly behind her like a scholarly backup dancer, nodding and looking interested. Nora had explained that he was an undergraduate student who was interested in her research. As they had waited for him to pick them up that morning, she’d said, “They offered me funding for an assistant, which is ridiculous, and you can hardly call it ‘funding.’ I mean, I don’t even know if it covers what he spends on gas driving me around. But he’s enthusiastic.”
Julie thought she could see the source of Mael’s enthusiasm. In the car, he had touched Nora’s arm and shoulder many more times than made physical sense while sitting side-by-side in a moving vehicle. From her bench, Julie made eye contact with Mael and he gave her a thumbs-up. She smiled with her lips pressed tight and looked down at the piece of paper in her lap. She skimmed, noting that she had remembered the basic story of the holy greyhound pretty well. As she read on, she felt a strange embarrassment that Nora had written these words, and that she was now reading them. As time passed, the shrine began to crumble and Saint Guinefort passed into legend. The holy greyhound stood as a symbolic protector of young people, and families began bringing their sick or injured children to the shrine to be healed. In particular, as stories of changelings spread across Europe, babies were often left at Saint Guinefort’s shrine overnight. It was believed that faeries kidnapped children, leaving a changeling, a faerie creature, in the child’s place. Changelings looked just like human children, but were often sick or weak. Parents believed that by leaving the changeling overnight at the shrine, Guinefort’s saintly protection would cause the real child to be returned. Many babies died in this way, in France and elsewhere.
Julie looked up, wondering if this was a direct translation of what Nora was saying. Julie searched the little group of listening kids for a horrified face, but they just looked a bit sweaty. Perhaps the French prepared their children for these harsh truths of history. Even sitting down, Julie felt tired and dizzy in the heat.
***
“So is this a reunion of sorts for you two?”
The question-asker, who had been fulfilling this role with dedication since they sat down, was across the table from Julie. His name was Marcus, and he was British. Next to him was an American woman, Jean, in Lyon teaching English. Nora had met them through bar trivia at Johnny Walsh’s Irish Pub in the 5th arrondissement. After an hour back from Chatillon in the hot car, they had left Mael behind and met these friends for dinner. The restaurant was enormous, with high ceilings and wood-paneled walls and an army of nearly-identical waiters. Marcus had insisted they all order quenelles, a mousse-like, oblong dish made of blended fish. It was a Lyonnaise specialty, Nora told Julie.
Neither of them answered Marcus’ question immediately. Nora looked at Julie, and they both laughed, looking down.
“Oh dear, have I walked into something?”
“No,” Nora said, “Not at all. We just haven’t seen each other in a while, so yes, I guess it’s an unofficial reunion.”
“Lovely. How long has it been?”
“Maybe, like, four—” said Nora.
“Over six years,” said Julie, at the same time.
Their companions’ eyebrows jumped up. “Oh!” said Jean, “Yes, that is quite a while.”
Nora glossed the moment over expertly, launching into a story about college, a class they’d taken, the professor they’d both longed for. Julie watched her talk amidst the clattering voices filling the restaurant, still feeling slightly floaty.
When Julie had informed her mother that she’d need to leave her alone in Paris for a few days to visit Nora in Lyon at the end of the trip, her mother had said, “Nora? Now there’s a name I haven’t heard in a while. Is she still with that dreadful boy?”
“I’m not sure he qualifies as a boy anymore, Mom, he’s at least thirty. And I don’t know. She hasn’t mentioned him in her emails.”
“Well, let’s hope he’s gone. She was always sweet, but so insecure.”
This was Julie’s mother’s lifelong refrain regarding her daughter’s friends, enemies, jealousies, conflicts. She’s insecure, honey. It isn’t your responsibility to fix it. And in Nora’s case, this has been true. She had been, always, less confident, unsure, polite but stammering. Clinging, no matter what, to the dreadful boy who was now, indeed, gone. They hadn’t talked about him yet, but Nora had mentioned something about being single and back in school, like a do-over. Beyond the break-up, she had transformed in other ways. She stood straighter and strode right up to people in the street to ask for directions. Her face had hollowed slightly. She spoke confidently, earlier in the park and now, to Marcus and Jean, putting on a show and pausing for them to laugh at the right moment.
A waiter approached, looking aghast that Julie had not finished her quenelle.
“It is not good?”
“No, it’s very good!” She said, “My friend has just been telling very engaging stories.”
“Ah,” he said, smiling down at them. “You are visiting, traveling?”
Julie loved the way European waiters looked at her. “Yes, I was in Paris for a week and now here in Lyon.”
“Eugh, Paris. Much better here, no? The Lyonnaise are not so rude like Parisians, we love to have the beautiful American visitors.”
He left, saying he would bring wine they had not asked for. Julie told a story about one of her clients which, she realized halfway through, required a lot more explanation than she thought. She jumped too quickly to the funny ending and had to go back.
***
The shower was tiny and triangular, shoved into the corner of a bathroom that was, itself, shoved into a corner of the apartment. Julie bumped repeatedly into the tiled walls as she lathered Nora’s shampoo into her hair. The floor of the shower was made of natural stones embedded in mortar, rounded pebbles of different sizes that felt good on Julie’s feet. She had woken very early to the sound of the apartment door closing, close to an hour ago, and Nora still had not returned.
Julie had lain in bed for a while before getting up to inspect the stack of books on the side table (all folklore-related) and, after a moment of hesitation, the contents of the dresser. The top drawer was not, as expected, underwear and pajamas, but instead a jumble of pens, hair elastics, two pairs of sunglasses, and a leather notebook. Julie quickly shut the drawer. She was not above journal-snooping, but she had not expected to find something like that so quickly, where bras and underwear should be.
The second drawer revealed the expected items. Julie checked the size on the topmost bra — still the same as her own. In college, Nora owned only one black and one nude bra, but was occasionally convinced to borrow one of Julie’s lacier ones when the situation called for it. Now, however, Julie saw that she had branched out into lace, a few colors, and even a matching set. The next two drawers contained jeans, shorts, t-shirts, and socks. Julie stood up and was halfway to the bathroom before she turned around and was back in front of the dresser, leather journal in hand before she could stop herself. The first page said simply, May 18 — Lyon! Chatillon tomorrow. As she flipped through, Julie became embarrassed at how fast her heart was beating. Each page was covered in scribbles about places Nora had been, the castle in Saint Etienne…Pérouges…similar dates to Guinefort… There was nothing personal at all. She put the journal back into the drawer.
Just after Julie turned off the shower, she heard the apartment door open. She emerged and found Nora, red-faced in running clothes, pulling pastries out of a white bag. She had a half-eaten pain-au-raisin in her hand.
“Morning! I hope I didn’t wake you up when I left.”
“No, I just woke up ten minutes ago.”
“Good. I’m going to shower, but please eat. I made a list of things we can do today.”
They left the apartment and Nora turned tour guide. They walked through a large park, a section of which was an open-air zoo with no admission fee, just giraffes and flamingos behind fences along the paved paths. They passed huge magnolias with enormous white blooms, the biggest Julie had ever seen, turned half-brown by the heat. Nora took a photo of Julie with her face right next to a magnolia flower bigger than her head. They went through a street market, across the river, and up hundreds of steps to the basilica on the hill. There was a funicular, Nora said, but the steps were interesting, covered in graffiti that went back in time, from fresh spray paint to names carved so long ago, they were barely legible. Julie felt tired but made it up the hill, where the first true gust of wind she’d felt in Lyon cooled the sweat on her face.
Inside the cool, dark, stone basilica, Nora spoke continuously, as she had most of the day — she seemed to know everything Julie could possibly have learned on a tour or read in a guide book. In the park, she’d recited the history of the zoo, and when they turned a corner to find an empty circular cage, about fifteen feet in diameter, made of menacing iron bars pointed at the sky, Nora told Julie about the bears who had occupied it for many years, one at a time, until the last one died in the late 1980s and the cage was deemed inhumane. She knew the construction dates of the cathedral and took Julie to walk on top of some exposed Roman walls. And in between the history lessons, they spoke of other things. Their families, Paris, Julie’s work in antitrust law, people from college, and whether those people were married. They skirted, all day, around themselves and the vast time gap in their friendship. The day became a game of relaying and combining everything they had each heard about the people they both knew. Julie liked it, the way they fell back into old patterns of gossip and storytelling, and she was relieved that this was even possible. She began to wonder whether they would just start over, right now, with no mention of before. New people in a new friendship. Nora certainly seemed new in some ways, and Julie hoped she could be too. Nora had kindly invited her here, clearly hoping for a fresh start. Julie knew that would be good. But, also, she was disappointed at the idea of peacefully moving on.
They rode the funicular down in order to take in the view before arriving at the final stop on Nora’s tour; a museum of miniatures. It was in a narrow, old building, with one display room on each floor. The museum was dim, with little squares of light every few feet along the walls, windows behind which tiny scenes showed a grocery store, a restaurant, a painter’s studio, an empty hallway. The plaques noted that each tableau was one twelfth the size of life. As they ascended to each new floor, the museum grew hotter and less populated. It was late afternoon.
Julie felt like a threat, huge and watching, to the invisible, tiny occupants of the world behind the wall. She and Nora moved mostly in silence, pausing occasionally to point at something very small. Look at that tiny pie! Julie was dizzy again but happy to be in a quiet, dark room. Nora stopped in front of one of the miniatures and Julie caught up to her. It was a bedroom with a curtained window. The bed was unmade, sheets rumpled, with a newspaper and several books discarded on the mattress. Strewn over the floor there were more books, playing cards, clothing, a hairdryer, two purses, shoes, scissors, an ashtray, tubs of lotion, and tiny tubes of mascara and lipstick. The plaque read La chambre d’une femme en désordre.
“It reminds me of our room in that house on Hawthorne.”
Julie laughed. “We were such a mess that year.”
That was the year the dreadful boy started coming around, when Julie would open the door to a scuffling, hurried pulling of Nora’s comforter, the boy’s bare arms. The floor covered in books, magazines, makeup, Nora’s jeans, his shirt. And at the time, Julie didn’t mind — she even smiled as she backed out of the room, sorry! It was in hindsight that he became dreadful, after he started lying, hiding, taking Nora away.
“So,” Julie said quietly, still looking at the messy little room, “What happened with Elliott?”
Nora huffed out a little laugh. “Oh, so many things. I suppose the short version is that I left him, two years ago. I threw the ring in his face, actually. You would have loved it.”
Julie was determined to be sensitive. “Was there any, um, big event, or—“
“No. He never did anything so terrible. But I guess you were right, in the end. He wasn’t a caring person. The last fight wasn’t even that bad, we’d had it before. He didn’t think I should do the PhD. He thought it was a waste of time. He kept convincing me to delay, for years I mean, and he always said the word folklore in this dripping, sanctimonious tone. And there were other things, of course.”
Julie looked at her. “That must have been really hard, to take that step, um—” She was waffling, she had never been good at this type of thing. “This is different, obviously, but I was in a relationship with this woman for two years, and it was hard. To leave, I mean, even when I knew I wanted to. My family loved her; my mom was so disappointed.”
Nora did not ask what had happened. Instead, she said, “I sometimes wondered if you were jealous. Of Elliott, in that way.”
In that way. Julie looked back at the display, throat tightening. She had turned bright red in the dark room. Just then, a docent appeared in the otherwise empty gallery to tell them the museum was closing. Nora, as they headed for the exit, filled the silence by turning to something Julie had always loved: bashing the dreadful boy. She explained all the ways he’d held her back, he diminished her passion, he thought academia was dead. He made her move to Baltimore. Julie took slow breaths. All the way down the stairs, Nora continued her rant, disgusted that he, that anyone, could be so dismissive. “Folklore isn’t just stories, it is the story. It’s the way we, humans, think and feel.”
By the time they reached the street, Elliott had been left behind and Nora was in the midst of a joyful, impassioned explanation of changelings. “People really believed things. They found this way to feel okay about something terrible. If the sick child died overnight at the shrine, it was the changeling that died, and even if they couldn’t have the real child back, their baby was with the faeries.”
They ate dinner at a conveyor belt sushi restaurant where the prices were color coded based on the plastic plates. It is impossible to have conveyor belt sushi without mainly talking about the conveyor belt, and how many more pieces you think you can eat, and how much you bet it will cost when they add up the stack of empty plates. After Julie shoved in one last piece of California roll, Nora asked if she wanted to go out.
“Out?”
“Yeah, there is a nice area with several bars I like. And I’ll call Mael, he always knows a new spot to try. He’ll bring friends.”
“Twenty-two-year-old friends.”
“It isn’t a crime to enjoy the attention,” Nora said with a wink. They walked back to the apartment, where Julie put on a sleeveless blue satin top of Nora’s.
***
Mael met them at a nondescript bar where every drink was served with a colorful paper umbrella, even Julie’s tequila soda. He had brought two friends, young men in fitted v-neck shortsleeves. Mael wore a button-down, undone a button further than Julie would have recommended. All three of them lavished attention on both women immediately, asking Julie questions she only half-understood and handing her another drink before she’d realized she was done with the last one. She was overheated and, very quickly, drunk. One of the v-necks vied for Nora’s attention, but her eyes were on Mael. Julie had been expecting to adjust to the city’s heat, still relentless, but she felt dizzy again, hot behind her eyes. Mael took her and Nora’s hands and pulled them outside and down the cobbled street to another bar, louder, with a dance floor downstairs.
As Julie moved between pulsing French bodies, every exposed arm she touched was damp with sweat. She and Nora danced their way into déjà vu, drunk on liquor and jumping, shimmying. Julie felt wild and happy, like she might finally let things go and start over right now. Mael’s friends had reappeared and they were watching. Julie saw their lips move as they both spoke to Mael, who grinned before shouting something in Nora’s ear, in French. Julie could hardly hear the sound of his voice over the music, but Nora laughed and rolled her eyes.
“They want me to kiss you.”
Nora was avoiding eye contact. Julie, propelled by tequila, laughed and swatted Mael in the chest.
“What?” he said, very close to her face, “you are American girls, no?”
Girls. She, and many people she knew, had been insisting on “women” in recent years, but here, on this dance floor, Julie felt Mael made an excellent point. She moved towards Nora. One of Mael’s friends made a whooping sound, and suddenly Julie’s hands were on Nora’s back, under the curtain of long hair, and she was tasting minty lip balm. Nora was tense for half a second before she relaxed, leaning in and nudging Julie’s lips apart with her tongue. Julie felt Nora’s hands in her hair, or maybe they were Mael’s, she couldn’t tell, she kept her eyes closed. The music pounded around them and Julie had no idea how long it had been. They kept kissing and Julie’s head spun and a small moan escaped her throat. At that, Nora stepped back with a look in her eye that said, I knew it.
Julie felt strangely cold. She had to look away from Nora. She raised her hands in the air and twirled, determined to dance on, and she felt a familiar desperation to undo, to prove someone wrong. She hated revealing assumptions to be correct. Mael appeared within her sightline with another drink and when she took it, she kept hold of his hand and danced, hips back and forth, in front of him. He touched her immediately, hands on her lower back. He was tall above her, and he smelled distinctly European. She could see why Nora enjoyed his attention.
***
Julie crawled into Nora’s bed sometime after four in the morning. Even with the air conditioner running full-blast, she was too warm. She had left the satin top on the floor. Nora slept quietly under the duvet. Julie’s drunkenness was finally waning, and she began to feel, over again, moments from the preceding hours. Nora’s hair, shoes sticking to the dance floor, the bright light in the bar bathroom. Mael’s hand in hers as he led her the few blocks to his apartment. His chest, hairless except for a trail leading from the hollow of his neck down to his sternum. The vibration of his lips against her ear as he whispered French that made her feel, conceptually, very sexy. The satisfaction of doing what Nora did not expect. The triumph of taking what Nora, maybe, wanted. The possibility of being different by morning.
“You leave tomorrow?” he had said, after.
“Yes.”
“She will wish you to stay. Nora, she said many things about you before you come.”
“Really?”
“She tells me all about you. She says you were missing many years, but now you are back, she hopes.”
He lay there, smoking a cigarette in bed, like a caricature of himself. Julie said nothing. She felt sad, knowing that she would likely let herself go missing again.
Julie still lay awake when light began to show through the window, and Nora stirred. She pushed the duvet off of her torso and hung one leg over the edge of the bed. When she saw Julie’s open eyes, she said, “My God, you really do run hot. You’re radiating.”
After a moment Julie said, “Sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“I hope I didn’t wake you when I came back.”
“You didn’t, I was so tired. Did you have fun?”
They were lying on their backs, both looking up at the ceiling. Nora was speaking in a light, measured voice.
“I did, yes. I had fun,” said Julie, “All that tequila really brought me back.”
“And?”
“And, yeah, Mael. He’s great, I mean, he was good.”
Julie turned on her pillow, hoping to share an awkward, understanding laugh with her friend, but saw only Nora’s back as she got up and moved toward her dresser.
It was not until later that morning, on the train back to Paris, that Julie pressed the back of her hand to her face and realized she must have a fever. And not until the fever broke that evening, as she sat on the floor of Charles de Gaulle airport with her mother, that she fully realized her dizziness in Lyon had not been due simply to the weather. Julie felt better, her mind clear, the sheen on her skin finally gone, but she was not changed. She had taken herself to the shrine and remained weak. She had not been returned to her mother cured.
Claire Huffman is a writer and fiber artist from Portland, Oregon, currently living in Brooklyn. She earned her Master of Fine Arts from New York University and her work was shortlisted for the 2025 DISQUIET Prize in Fiction. She writes about girls, memory and time.
ELEVENTH HOUR LITERARY 