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We never know when the market will come, though it comes twice a year; a stretch of three days, or five, or seven or nine, but never more. Overnight, the sound of wood and nail and turning wheel in the fields that are never plowed, never grazed, where no brambleberries grow, and in the morning […]
I’m told that the recipe never changes. It’s the same taro congee day after day, no added powders or ingredients. The taste is supposed to be consistent with only a few shifts in nutrients. I palm the sensoring pad and the vending machine squeezes it out from the robot with the mixing bowl behind glass. […]
(Content Note for emotional abuse and mentions of sexual abuse.) For Shirley Jackson and Charles Dickens “This is a true-crime tale?” Two reporters sharing the shuttle with us, and of course I got the one who hadn’t done her homework. I suppose I should have been flattered that they were there—a Broadway musical spun off the […]
I. I feel the morning sun first in the bones of my shoulders, and then the high of my back and, when I turn to face the clearing where the clay is soft and red and ready for wounding, I feel it on my face. This is how it talks to me. It says the […]
I know something’s wrong, the way we’re both hunched over your tiny table in your tiny kitchen, and you keep looking at the tea you’re not drinking. My head grazes your ceiling as I snatch another scone off your plate and pop it into my mouth. Crumbs scatter across my shirt, already stained with moss […]
A beast dwelt in the castle on the hill. There was nothing so very strange or unusual in this circumstance; recently it had been tremendously in fashion. A witch couldn’t really hope to make her debut in society without imprisoning at least one troublesome young man behind stone walls. Lucia Bellomi knew all of this, […]
One night on the mountain, you eat his death. You don’t know what compels you to do it. It has been a trying day. Anyone might have committed the same thoughtless act of petty retaliation. Whatever the reason, when Kyoseong turns his back on you, slender hands on narrow hips, you take his death between […]
The cable has gone out again. The witch complains for a while, jiggling wires and prodding buttons and smacking the top of the TV with her hand. Then she falls asleep on the couch, her nose in the air, snoring faintly. One hand cups her stomach; the other hangs free, brushing the tangled carpet of […]
When I wake, I am curled up as small as a seed. My hands are tucked between my knees, my face pressed into sweet loam. Morning dew blankets my skin like thick, glistening fur. There is a small potato beetle, yellow with black stripes, on my shoulder. I don’t doubt that there are more elsewhere, […]
Before I begin, I feel that I should mention the people who made it possible for me to stand before you now. Unfortunately neither my mother nor my father can be here with me today, but my Uncle Matthew and Aunt Bess are, and I thank them both for all their hard work. For most […]
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