I'm currently starting to gring down my TBR list and putting a bit more emphasis on the really short stories. I got an ARC copy from the author some time ago and started the book with fully open expectations without knowing the plot.

The novelette instantly makes you realize this is a prison story. But not just any imnate tale, Mathilda has a superpower to control and sense the health of plants but her abilities have been nullified with a pair of bracelets that are fastened to her wrists.

Reaching two years into her 5 year sentence with no news from the outside world, she is deperately struggling to save her tomato plants that were a priviledge due to good behavior. The catch is that they only supply her with a pitiful amount of water. It agravates her to no end.

Her shovel then feels something hard in the soil. An illegal message in a roll of paper. Without knowing who sent it, the veracity of the message that her grandmother is apparently infirm and with what purpose, she visits a friendly lifer convict named Lenore for advice at once. The exercise obsessed woman tries to brush the message off as something of little relevance and that she should just ignore it. She'll discover how her family is doing in just another three months.

But Mathilda is an angsty 17 year old with little patience and against Lenore's well-wrranted warning, she confesses the message to the warden at once in the hopes of getting a chance to know the truth. Instead, she is pressured to become a snitch and punished with another 6 weeks of now knowing the whereabouts of her family.

Determined to try to pass her sentence without stirring unwanted attention, an inmate that has always given her a hard time called Tricksie wishes to make her a staggering offer...

The novelette is cruelly short and with only 20 pages it has already revealed a rather interesting fantastical world where certain humans have a superpower. What little that we know about this world is that having these abilities aren't illegal per se, but you will get harsh sentences if you use them to commit a crime.

The characters seem rather interesting although I do think Mathilda has too many anger issues for my taste. While Paranormal isn't my preferred genre, I enjoyed this story and will consider reading the full-fledged novel sometime. ( )