The grass died that sweltering, fey summer, and the wildflowers, and the garden tomatoes, and the corn maze Dad had planted in the top field. (Mam said he’d been watching too many American movies; Dad said we had to keep the lights on somehow and everyone had a gimmick these days.) The canal that ran […]

Its windows had been facing the Pacific the first time she saw the house—a two-story wall of glass like the rest, all glittering beacons on cliffs dark with trees. The gray water below frothed into white crests, dashing and drooling between teeth-like formations along the cove. Marta Montejo closed her eyes and tightly gripped her […]

Sorrow I’ll tell this first part of the tale as you told me, dear brother, since you can’t bear to tell it anymore. Not even to yourself. I want you to understand how things came to this pass. Brian Coin, that black-haired boy like a rail-thin raven, saw him too, you know, walking through the […]

I should start by saying that I did not care for my younger sister Helen. She had been raised by my father to be loud and rude and selfish, and heedless of the feelings of others. Even so, she was my sister, and we endured each other as siblings often do. After our father abandoned […]