On Fridays, the baker left stale loaves in a steel drum out behind the kitchen. For the pigeons and the poor, a charity and a celebration. The Allies had won. Clara took two loaves. She paid three cents to the butcher for a half-pound of paper-wrapped castoffs: entrails, snout, and ears. Clara asked that the […]
Cassandra coils within the glass confines of the jar, pale eyes staring at those who roam beyond. They in their suits and day dresses; they who dare to stare at her. She is beautiful, beyond compare. She knows this in a way they do not, but in a way they will come to understand. She […]
They all think that she is a cat lady: harmlessly crazy, smelly, alone. They have no idea that her house is full of cages, that she is a modern-day saint. They have no idea that she has sold her names for them, for the power to help them. Her names: her Christian name, her maiden […]
A winter forest: dark stripes of trees against the snow, and the girl’s red coat. He followed her, away from the glistening road and inert car. She moved through the black and white, folding herself into the trees. He was two hours’ drive from the city. The car had died in the narrow corridor of […]
If I still had a voice, I would cry out. The fabric is thick and my needle blunt—I should have sharpened it before now—so I put too much weight behind my thrust and forced the point. Not only the quilt, but also my finger is impaled. I do not wail, though I long to, determined […]
Maura has no beef or blood pudding to offer when the young strangers come knocking. No mackerel, no lamprey, no lamb. They won’t take stale bread, or fish heads, or chard, but sometimes, sometimes they’ll take dairy. Before daybreak she drained Old Bess’s udders, half-filling a small tin pail. At dusk she placed saucers of milk […]
After the wedding, Ruth moved into the Victorian mansion on Jack’s vast, rural estate. She brought only two bags. One was full of clothes. The other she unpacked like a devotee arranging an altar: an assortment of vanilla-scented lotions, deodorants, soaps, moisturizers, scrubs and splashes. Every morning, Jack watched Ruth stand by the pedestal sink […]
My sister and I didn’t go to the market with the intention of buying a carpet for the new house. All we really wanted were some souvenirs to bring back to Chicago. We did buy a few ebony masks, some bead necklaces, a bronze statuette of the mermaid goddess Mami Wata, stuff like that. But […]
