This is what she knows: Do not immediately repeat a word. Do not immediately repeat a word spoken by someone else, and do not allow someone to repeat a word you’ve just said. Do not allow yourself to hear your own echo. These rules will keep you alive. Words cannot be trusted. Give them a […]
The first thing you learn as you climb out of the chasm is that there are fingers to pull you down. They are icy, taloned, the poltergeists of lives past and regrets buried. Your skin sloughed off long ago and your bones grind together, wearing down, but that’s fine because once you reach the light […]
Tori sat on the concrete floor of the metro station, eyeing the furry purple spider standing on her knee as a lump formed in her throat. This one was the right color. People passed just feet from where she sat with her spider immigrant of the day. Commuters almost always milled around the metro stations […]
1. When she was twenty-one, Mrs. Voss visited a tarot reader at one of the Arts and Culture festivals that a local ladies’ society used to hold on the shore of Lake Michigan some weekends in early summer. The day had been tremendously hot for the season. She can’t remember the future, but she remembers […]
The knock on the schoolhouse door came an hour after dismissal, and Miss Augusta hesitated for a moment before answering. She had never met the child who stood on the threshold, but she knew already that the girl’s name was Lilianne Eisner, that she had arrived in Branaugh only yesterday, and that she was not […]
(translated by David Bowles) “The first time I saw my parents cry in silence, I knew that I was now an adult. “They didn’t see me, of course. They hid in order to weep. But when you’re six years old, you tend to discover everything your parents try to keep from you. “They had built […]
This is not a haunted house story. This is what happens after. Because Jia hasn’t stayed in a single place for long ever since she left the House. In those ten years, she’s gotten to be an adept cryptographer in the hidden ciphers of AirBnB, an expert in the secret lexicons of middling reviews, sussing […]
Stormy weather flicks the night sky with lightning and thunder. Old, two-storied buildings with unlit eyes watch the empty streets as if waiting for someone. Suddenly, a girl appears from one of the old brick-faced buildings wearing torn jeans and a waistcoat, and holding an umbrella to the sky. She wavers, appearing to be looking […]
One step inside and Amy knew there was something she’d forgotten. She heaved her rucksack over the threshold and counted the carrier bags she’d lugged up from the Co-op in the town. Four, which was right. There might not be enough wine, though. With the front door key between her teeth—metallic tang on her tongue—she […]
The new egg was going to be a boy. Cadence had overheard Mother Reed and Mother Piper saying so in the kitchen, last night, after they were done singing to it. She didn’t know how they could tell—it looked just like her little sisters’ eggs had. Maybe a bit bigger than theirs had been at […]
