London, 1854 Luella lamented that seventy-one was too old to receive the news about Cross Bones Cemetery, with its dead poking out of the ground. The family lawyer, Arthur Barrows, had come to her townhouse one evening last week and in his usual mordant manner informed her that due to the new Burial Act, a […]

“Love and hate are so entwined that if thoughts could kill, we’d all be dead in the bosom of our families.”—Dr. Sigmund Freud It was the first thing I ever saw in my analyst’s office, and I was struck that anyone would embroider a phrase like that into a sampler, the embroidery thread all in […]

The double line of stationary vehicles stretched for nearly a mile along the narrow access road before disappearing into the distant woods. Andy’s car sat in the right-hand lane. He was boxed in by a blue minivan on the left, a white two-door directly in front, and a black-bodied, chrome-grilled, muscle car directly behind. The […]

He turns, head raised, inhaling. Shale and sedge underfoot, and then a tight slope down to the line of scrub before the hill breaks off into the forest of the valley. The branches flex and quiver above us, praying into the dark. The scratch of bramble on my bare calf, a line of sweat on […]