Life experiences, I've found, can do a lot for the imagination. Yes, it certainly can suppress it, dampen it, reduce it to a barely flickering flame that couldn't spit sparks if it tried. However, that little ember will always be there, and one day something might just happen to breathe life back into it.

That's what happened to me, prior to starting this book. Life experiences killed my creativity, and I really do mean it. For three years I couldn't write, draw, or craft - three things that meant the world to me growing up. Unfortunately, some experiences in my first quarter of college led to a complete crash of my artistic skill. All at once, I had lost all of my friends, had my heart broken (with malice), and found out that I wouldn't be able to return to school because no one was willing to help me with transportation. It was a large mess, and it just kept piling on as I found myself going through harsh bouts of depression, gaining new friends only to lose them again, opening my heart only to regret it later, and just generally falling further and further into what seemed like an endless pit.

Two years ago, I hit my absolute lowest point.  I was still out of school, had no job and no money. My girlfriend had just viciously ripped out my heart, and I was often finding myself curled up in my mother's lap, sobbing because I just couldn't take it anymore.  I had to constantly have someone else in the house with me, for we all feared that if I was left alone for too long that I would do something drastic. Yet I was too afraid to leave the house, and this made things very difficult for my mother and I as we tried to keep me safe and alive, as well as allow her to leave when she needed to to make money and buy groceries. There's still an entire three month block of my life that I can't remember, no matter how hard I try. I'm told that I spent that time sleeping and reading, and that more than once my mother had to ask me to eat because I hadn't for a few days.

Since then, I've gotten back into school, found new friends that love and support me, and given my heart to someone new. She and I have been together for... about a year as of this writing, and we're doing fairly well, I think. I still have trouble with depression at times, and we all know that it's likely going to be that way for a very long time. However, I have hope now, and with that hope came the return of my creativity, and my desire to write. For the most part, I've been writing short fan stories on my Tumblr blog and other sites, but I think that I'm finally ready to undertake an original project.

When you read Keeping It Simple, I hope that you can become truly immersed in Cricket's story, and that in spite of the fantasy elements of the story, you can connect with her and the other characters just as you might with living human beings. The story opens on a new chapter in Cricket's life, and like with all changes there are good things and bad things to come. I hope you enjoy joining her, and that as she learns and overcomes her obstacles - both magical and mundane - that you might learn and grow with her.  Please, enjoy the story.

I have to get out of here. I have to get out of this hellhole.

There were many times that those very words had run through her mind, and there were many times that she had thought that she was free. None had been real, not yet at least.  The first time that she escaped a life she didn't want, in elementary school, she had been dragged back a mere three months later. The second time, rescued by family that wanted her to be free as much as she wanted to be free, it had happened again.  That was the way things tended to go, when you were younger than 18 and lived with a controlling, if confused, guardian. She escaped again a third time, and to her great joy this time it stuck. These things do tend to happen in threes after all, or so the storybooks say.

The storybooks also say, however, that there are many circles of hell, and even if her three escapes counted toward that, the smallest known number is seven. So it went that she escaped one hell and fell hard into another. It hadn't seemed that way at first, oh no. This was a place she'd dreamed of for many long years before finally arriving, and the rose colored glasses that come with joy often lead to missing the red flag warnings.

To this day, she's not sure when things started going badly, or even when she finally noticed. All she knows for sure is that this new hell was much worse than the one that came before, because this time, she had no sight of where to go. There was an end goal, of course, but it was intangible to her. She had no plans of escape that would succeed no matter what she did, she didn't even know where she might go if she did happen to devise an escape. No, this hell was much, much worse, for the simple reason that she was stuck.

"Have you seen my hair ties?" She lifted a cushion, sliding her hand into the creases of the sofa in search of even one missing hair tie. Just one would be enough to keep her hair out of the food, out of the way. "Or my clip? Anything?"

"Nope, haven't seen any of 'em."

She sighed softly, closing her eyes. Searching for anything in this house was nearly impossible. It seemed that as soon as she set something down, it was going missing, no matter what it was or where she set it. She'd probably find the hair ties in a week or so, in a completely obvious yet ridiculous place, like a shelf in the bathroom or a cabinet in the kitchen. She was just absent-minded enough for such things, and just last week she had found her keys in the freezer.

When she opened her eyes, her brother was standing there, offering up a simple blue hair tie. Her shoulders slumped, and she reached up to take it. "Thank you," she said softly, gathering up her hair to tie it back. She would simply cut it, but the thick curls would only get in the way more if she did. Anyway, she didn't like short hair with the shape of her face. "I'm sorry for being so short with you today, I'm just -"

"Stressed." Her brother smiled. "Relax, Cricket, I understand. I did grow up with you, you know."

She made a noise that she would forever deny was a snort, and allowed her brother to pull her into a hug.  "Thanks Luke." Her voice was muffled as she buried her face against his shirt, breathing him in. Luke was the only stable thing she had in her life, and it always amazed her how patient he was with her. All her life, friends had told her horror stories about their siblings, how it was normal to bully and be bullied, to generally make each other miserable. She couldn't understand that at all. Even when they had been separated for five years, Luke had supported her as best as he could from a distance. "You're the best brother a girl can ask for."

He laughed, and she felt him press a kiss to the top of her head before nudging her away.  "Come on, I'll give you a hand with the dishes and you can focus on dinner. Sound like a plan?"

She grinned, swatting at him playfully. "Alright." Anyone else to make that offer would have been shot down. The kitchen of their home was small, and Cricket had often had to chase out her mother because there simply wasn't room for two people to work at the same time.  That, and her mother was often making sandwiches when Cricket was right in the middle of cooking dinner. It always felt like a slap in the face when you were half way through cooking a meal, and a member of your family came in to start making a sandwich. Her mother always acted like Cricket was a child of the devil or something for protesting, too.

Shaking her head to rid herself of the unpleasant thoughts, she led the way into the kitchen and set her brother up at the sink.

"I'll be leaving for school again soon," she said, hands moving automatically to collect ingredients and dishes, to measure and mix. She was at home in the kitchen, and everything was easy for her there. "Are you going to be okay here? Mom's been gone for a week, I don't think she's coming back."

"I'll be fine." They had to speak a little louder with the water running, but it wasn't any trouble. "Let me run a branch of the shop from here. I can't do the... the herbs and stuff that you do, but I can bind the books.  Give me a little bit of the money from that, and I'll work on fixing up the house."

She laughed. "Luke, you know I'd send you money, you don't have to work for me."

"It'll make me feel better. C'mon Crick, I don't want to be a freeloader. Let me do a little work, pay me on commission. Send me some flyer designs and I'll print them out, maybe make the front room a store front. What do you think?"

"I think you need a permit for that. It's a nice thought though."

Luke hummed, turning off the water and drying his hands.  "You need a permit to sell out of your own home?" he asked, a certain amount of doubt in his tone that had Cricket turning. She leaned back against the counter, arm curled around a large mixing bowl while she whisked at a steady speed.  

"Pretty sure, at least to run it like a... a walk in store.  Has to do with zoning or something, I don't really know.  People in a residential area don't want to deal with the hustle and bustle of afternoon shoppers when they're at home, you know."  She turned back, tapping the whisk on the edge of the bowl and pulling out a muffin tin. "It's not really a big deal, Luke. Keeping things strictly online is easier for me, except the occasional event. You know how I feel about crowds."

"Well yeah. I just... I want us to have a better life."

She smiled as she poured the batter into the tins. "I know Luke. But we aren't going to live together forever and--"

She jumped, feeling like a jolt of electricity ran up her spine as pans crashed against each other.  It was only years of working in the kitchen that allowed her to save the batter from spilling over. "Lucas!"

"You're moving out?"

Her shoulder hunched, and she looked down at the batter. "I... well I thought it would be easier - cheaper - to live off campus during the school year. But I can't commute from here to there every day, that's ridiculous.  So... I thought I'd look for an apartment this next quarter."

Luke ran from the room, and Cricket sighed, running a hand through her hair.  Sometimes, just sometimes, her brother was just as bad as she was when it came to emotions and impulse.