The keeper of the shed by the forest met us on the path. She was expecting us because it was Midwinter Eve. “I have lit a fire in the grate and there are plenty of logs stacked up outside.” She… Continue Reading
“I thought she’d dozed off.” It was the excuse I’d been making all week. Tim was standing next to me, gazing at the body in the coffin. Above the fragrance of hothouse flowers rose a faint scent of mothballs, an… Continue Reading
Ruffles knew something was wrong, something below her left armpit. It showed itself in the scent of her sweat, a sort of asymmetry in the chemical shape of her body. How could he tell her? He barked and growled at… Continue Reading
That was what they called him, anyway; those few neighbors who lived a mile away from his hermitage. The hermitage was one of those corrugated iron bomb shelters, semicircular and stifling. He had sat on top of it for five… Continue Reading
Wisconsin State Park Ranger Smith rolled up on a group of campers standing outside a women’s outhouse. The building trembled despite its sturdy cinderblock construction and steel door. As he stepped out of the truck, a vile combination of rotten… Continue Reading
“Auntie Mary, you’re hurting my hand.” I was jolted to the present by the complaints of my niece. Her voice cut through all the noise of the fair that surrounds us. Josie is trying to tug her hand free from… Continue Reading
The penguin sitting on the egg is a lesson in trust, love, or compulsion. Instinct. He sits on the egg, wind whipping and pulling at his feathers, snow in his eyes. His body is encased in a freezing crust. All… Continue Reading
Purple sugar dribbles down my finger. I suck it off before a drop can hit the ants on the pavement. It’s a hot day, but I don’t know, maybe you would have called it warm. Even when I was sweating,… Continue Reading
Every year at Halloween, Dad would pull out the giant sombrero he’d won once on a trip to Mexico. While we kids would get dressed up, applying face paint, leotards, swords and sashes, to perfect our costumes, Dad would go… Continue Reading
On the train between Newton Abbot and Topsham, Jimmy Vincetore was thinking about the same journey he had made the previous week, same line, same stops, same time of the night. The main difference was that last week he had… Continue Reading