Mayra

A twisty gothic debut about two women--who shared an intense, toxic friendship as children--reconnecting at a secluded house deep in the swamplands of Florida

It’s been years since Ingrid has heard from her childhood best friend, Mayra, a fearless rebel who fled their hometown of Miami for college in the Northeast. But when Mayra calls out of the blue to invite Ingrid to a weekend at a house in the Everglades, Ingrid impulsively accepts.

From the moment Ingrid sets out for the house, danger looms: the directions to the house are difficult, she’s out of reach of cell service, and the wet maw of the swamp threatens to swallow her up as she drives deeper into the Everglades. But once she arrives, the two women settle into the familiar intimacy of each other’s company--their reunion only spoiled by the reemergence of past disagreements, and the unexpected presence of Mayra’s new boyfriend Benji.

The trio spend their hours hiking around the property, eating lavish meals, and exploring the labyrinthine house, which has belonged to Benji’s family for many generations. In the house and its grounds, time itself seems to stretch and expand, and Ingrid begins to lose a sense of the outside world, and herself. When Ingrid finds an aged journal that holds a clue to understanding the house, she must fight to hold onto herself while uncovering the journal’s secrets, or risk being subsumed by the insatiable draw of the house forever.

Nicky Gonzalez is a writer from Hialeah, Florida. Her fiction has appeared in McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, BOMB Magazine, Kenyon Review Online, Taco Bell Quarterly, and other publications. She has received support from the Elizabeth George Foundation, the Granum Foundation, Millay Arts, Lighthouse Works, and the Hambidge Center. She lives in Massachusetts.