Jason, a bronze sickle in one hand, glimpsed movement at the edge of the woods and straightened to peer above the golden stalks of barley. At the far end of the field, Dame Stilwell, his teacher, had emerged from the… Continue Reading
“You eat?” Carmel’s landlady was standing on her doorstep with two pieces of fruit unlike any she had ever seen before. “What is it?” Carmel asked speaking slowly and clearly. “You eat?” Evie repeated with a smile. “Yes.” Carmel took… Continue Reading
Le Saloon de Chocolate. It’s a little shop in the empty-calorie heartland suburb where I grew up. Clearly the owners never learned proper French, though they have a space in the upscale mall, the one with more pretensions than the… Continue Reading
The dilemma — I knew even as a nine-year-old boy to be a “good problem” — was I’d unwrapped a blue plastic horse from Mrs. Golding during the fourth-grade classroom Christmas party and all the girls wanted horses, as girls… Continue Reading
He smiled as he finished wrapping the gift. It hadn’t been as hard as he feared. Satisfied, he brought out his pen and wrote. *** Amanda received the first latticework animal the morning before her sixth birthday. It was sitting… Continue Reading
The Princess descended from her carriage wearing only a cloak embellished with the royal sigil, uncaring of her nakedness beneath it. Few in the town square were shocked; below her neck the Princess’s body was made entirely of glass and… Continue Reading