Liesel felt herself counting them, one, two, three. In and out. In and out. One two three. Counting the breaths made it feel less like waiting and more like expecting. “Is it sick?” Krista asked. Her little sister leaned close to her side. Liesel shrugged. “I think so.” She knew it wouldn’t be long. Moments, […]
The night before Grandaddy Burl died, Colly dreamed of a flathead catfish swallowing him whole. Summer storms had been rolling in since June; the mountain air sitting heavy like flannel on fevered skin. Splashes of sunbeams illuminated verdant pockets, but the inevitability of more rain coaxed the shadows out from crevices and caves to smother […]
“You know what I heard, Philippa?” Kenzi said. “What?” I said, watching the lifeguards clean the pool beyond the fence. For the last time that summer, we were waiting to get into the city pool and, as usual, had come too early. “Mitchell was watching you the whole time we were here yesterday.” I gripped […]
The Bethmoers expected their neighbors. Their apartment demanded guests. Meat cooked in the oven. All the lamps threw light. The Muellers were expected at 8. In private, the Bethmoers called Mrs. Mueller “the mouth.” Mrs. Mueller licked her lips often, consuming her lipstick through the night. Her lips, joked Mrs. Bethmoer, began the evening in […]
I lose my finger during the private flight back from Japan. It isn’t the whole finger, of course, just the bone. When I drugged myself into oblivion at the start of the flight, it was totally fine. When the designer-uniformed flight attendant woke me, it was a jelly sack. In the hospital bed next to […]
The first time you see the Grand Canyon, you’re ten years old on a trip with your parents. You walk up to the railing and look out over it and say, “It’s big.” Your mother sighs, as if you’ve disappointed her with your reaction. But it is big, so big that it renders meaningless any […]
Kate and I are blaring our favorite local metal band, No Turning Back, on the car stereo. We’re on our way to The Spot, which is this hookah bar venue on the rural side of Wander. My mom hates when we go there because I always come home smelling like smoke. It’s not my fault […]
Once upon a time, the house next to the cemetery belonged to the only undertaker in town. But we Talbots haven’t been undertakers since great-uncle Laurence got shot in a hunting accident. It’s been just Pa and me in the house ever since. But that’s fine. The house likes it better that way. At least […]
The statue looked uncannily like her mother. Its nose curved up, stout at the base and plump near the nostrils. Long straight hair fell below its waist; flowy, as if caught in the same wind that brushed against Roadside’s ears. If she squinted, a part of her was so sure that the statue would start […]
You’ve got to understand, first up, that I was obsessed with this boy mainly because he wasn’t the sort of boy anyone else would be obsessed with, which left him all to me. He’d kick a football with his friends up the road to school, right up the middle of the road, mind you, weaving […]
It starts with an inch-long slit in my neck. Mom notices first. “Got a secret you want to tell us?” she says with a laugh, chewing on the waffles that she makes for me and Dad every morning before school. She grins at me as wide as the scar on her neck where her own […]
Do not go hunting in the blue hour. That is the creed Reid learned from childhood to their teenaged years, following the footsteps of their parents, treading lightly when winter falls and shuttering windows against the twilight. Blue covers the forest in all its density when the sun goes down, enough to turn snow and […]