Madison didn’t sit in her usual spot by the window. She didn’t say anything to Sophia about the video she’d sent her of Charli vomiting in the girl’s bathroom. Elijah didn’t announce his late entry to class with raised hands… Continue Reading
A symphony of action and reaction played between mirrors in the window display of the small shop in the New Orleans French Quarter. Once inside, Etta surrendered to the fantasy. Convex and concave reflections faced one another in one corner.… Continue Reading
I heard footsteps come into the house. Then, silence. As young girls, after we helped plant vegetables in the garden, my older sister Ammara and I would fill our straw baskets with mangoes and climb to a high place on… Continue Reading
Mrs. Jane Kotwitz eyed the lesson plan with curious disapproval. Typed neatly with plenty of white margin for notes, the plan for third hour simply read, “Paxton — reading. He takes the lone seat by the windows.” Mrs. Kotwitz’s eyes… Continue Reading
Ever since I was little, I knew the crown came with sacrifice. Even so, in the spring I turned eighteen, I met a girl in our court who loved Lady Guinevere as much as I did. My sweet Primavera. Like… Continue Reading
The forest wrapped itself around me, the trees reaching up to almost touch each other in the canopy. Light filtered down in patches, speckling all around me in shimmering warmth. There was the odd waft of cut pine, a spider… Continue Reading
Alice May greeted her friends on the porch of Castle Rock, a sprawling Virginia estate. Zoe, the taller of the two, held a pizza box, and Anna clutched a paper bag that clinked when the girls unloaded onto the kitchen… Continue Reading
At the Health and Human Services office, we stand in a long, narrow hallway waiting for our chance to make our cases, get our food stamps straightened out or turn in paperwork to keep them. We are strangers, but the… Continue Reading
My body is decomposing. It starts to peel away like an onion losing its skin, only to reveal a shriveled core beneath. I must not let him witness this transformation. Since I assumed the role of Madame Wang, I have… Continue Reading
Courtney swore she heard the hiss of ten thousand shrubs and grasses stung by the electric shock shooting through the mycelial network connecting them. She looked up at Professor Schechter, who calmly tapped on her tablet. “We’ll take another sample… Continue Reading