The bakery had been dark for three hours when Tonya finally opened her laptop. She sat at the small wooden table in the back room, the one Mrs. Bellamy used for paperwork and ordering supplies, with a mug of chamomile tea cooling beside her elbow. Outside, snow fell in thick, lazy spirals past the frosted window, each flake catching the yellow glow of the streetlamp on the corner. The rest of Main Street slept, shops shuttered, Christmas lights blinking their patient rhythm into the December...
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy Name,
thy kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those
who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory,
forever and ever.
In Jesus’ name
Amen.
Dear Lord Jesus Christ
God bless every single living creature
On this planet and others.
May everybody's hopes and dreams come true
...
Tom Henderson stood on the edge of the Grand Canyon, holding his phone like it was a detonator. Behind him, his best friend Gary whispered, “Man, one more step back and you’ll have the most viral video in history.”
Tom grinned. “That’s the point! Extreme yoga, Edge Edition.” He bent one knee, extended his arms, and wobbled dangerously. The wind picked up like it had a grudge.
Gary’s eyes widened. “Dude, it’s a live stream. Maybe chill?”
“Gary,” Tom said, adjusting his balance, “if you want to...
The first time Olivia saw the flyer, it was taped crooked over the laundromat bulletin board: MIDNIGHT EXCHANGE. BRING WHAT YOU CANNOT KEEP. No fee, no phone number, just an address across town.
She went as a joke. That was what she told herself while she walked the six blocks in the cold, fingers shoved deep in her hoodie pocket around the small plastic hospital bracelet she had never thrown away.
The address turned out to be the old roller rink, the one that closed long ago. Its neon sign...
The room felt small when the doctor left. The walls leaned in as if they wanted to listen. I sat beside his bed and held his hand. His pulse tapped a thin rhythm under my fingers, like it was trying to stay steady for me.
Night settled over the house in slow layers. I closed my eyes and asked the dark for one thing. Not riches. Not time, or anything the world could weigh or count. Only this, to let him be whole again.
A breeze slipped through the open window, though the air outside was still....
My dearest you,
As the last candle of me flickered, it didn't just fade away. I settled quietly into the rooms you still enter. I learned the shape of your breathing in the middle of the night, the way you trace your fingers on the windowpane when you don’t know I’m watching.
Do you feel the whisper of the sun on your shoulder and wonder who brushed it there? I did. I moved the light so you’d know that you are not alone.
All your regrets, they’re towels damp with rain, folded now inside a...
The fog rolled in off the river, thick and gray, swallowing the last of the streetlights. Silas stood at the edge of the pier, hands shoved deep into his coat pockets, watching the water churn beneath him. The city had changed, but the docks hadn’t. They still smelled of salt and dead fish.
He remembered Johnny, his brother, laughing as he hauled crates in the rain, sleeves rolled up to reveal forearms streaked with grime. Johnny used to work at the docks, back when the ships still came in...
She finds the card tucked under the edge of a dusty ledger in her grandfather’s office, a collage of gold and fruit gleaming against a velvet background. In the image, a man sits surrounded by riches. A crown between his hands, tin cans transmogrified into sumptuous vessels, apples polished to an unnatural sheen. There is a face, but no name; only the suggestion of hunger quelled.
As she palms the card, she feels its weight. Is a subtle thrum in her fingertips, like the pulse of coins sliding...
We are longing for the rain to return, pressing our palms against the cloudy pane and memorizing the way dust rivers itself through the yard. The porch boards creak with our weight, morning after morning, while the air cools but never quenches, always promising... never giving. Every night our voices twist into the ceiling beams, prayers sweet and sharp as honeysuckle, hope thrumming under our ribs, brittle as starlight.
There’s a photograph tacked above the stove, watered edges curling. It...
The wind carried a strange sound that winter night. A scraping on the back porch, soft like claws against frozen wood. Tara turned down the radio and listened again. For a moment, everything hushed, even the ticking of the wall clock.
Then came a low whine.
She opened the door with her flashlight trembling in her hand. A coyote stood at the edge of the porch, snow catching in its thick fur. Its eyes shone amber, calm but heavy with knowing. Beneath its jaw hung a black leather collar, cracked...
He smiled at the rescue team through the viewport, until he realized they were not wearing helmets in space.
It hasn’t snowed for 213 days, and the town of Winterbend is smelling like dust. The pine trees stand bare and gray against a sun that refuses to dim. The lakebed cracked weeks ago, splitting along the old dock like puzzle pieces forced apart.
Harper Cole keeps a tally on his porch railing, tiny notches he carves with a steak knife, one for each day without snowfall. People tease him about it, but they still glance up at the sky when they pass his house. Same blank blue. Same weightless...
When Catrine Hovland called Merrin in from the shed, twilight wavered across the backyard, turning the crabapple trees the color of bruises. He paused at the door, always wary lately, while she laid the battered copper pot in the center of their small table.
A sigh drew through the walls. Catrine ignored it, serving two heaping ladles into chipped bowls. The stew’s aroma curled and shifted, not quite settling, sometimes sweet as dandelion, other times acrid as blood.
Merrin lifted his spoon,...
As the nights
swallows the days.
As the farmers
bring in the harvests.
As the families
prepare the feasts.
They light the bonfires
and donned their costumes.
For, on Samhain,
the dead returns.
When it comes time
for the Grim Reaper’s call.
Don’t mourn me at all.
No tear will you shed.
No sorrow will you feel.
When the Grim Reaper calls for me.
Your life is your own.
That, I will not disrupt.
No need to let you know,
when the Grim Reaper called for me.
You don’t know me in life.
Why know me in death?
Remain where you are.
No need to know
when the Grim Reaper called for me.
My one true love
is all who knows,
when the Grim Reaper called for me.
It is him,
and him alone,
who will set my ashes free.
After...
I stand in the middle of a meadow.
Stars sparkle in the night sky.
The moon’s beams embrace the
open petals of the moonflowers.
The wind plays with my hair
as she whispers into my ear.
She wants me to know,
the words of my ancestors.
She tells me
she is the voice
of the ancient ones.
Those lost to time.
She is the voice
I hear in the rain,
in the intertwined flames,
and the rumble of the land.
She tells me
her sadness,
her hunger,
and her pain.
She tells me
She is the voice
of the past,
of the present,
and of the...
My tomb,
My one window crypt.
There, alone,
It protects me,
from the horrors of the world.
I sit and stare.
Out of my one,
Window crypt.
I have seen the sunlight’s rays.
Illuminate the azure sky.
As the white marshmallow,
Clouds drifted by.
I have heard the birds warble,
Their love songs,
As they nestled in their nests.
I have seen the rage of the heavens,
As it turned black as the midnight sky,
And the clouds turned gray.
I felt the Earth tremble,
As lightning streaked the welkin.
I heard the rain beat the...
Fire Ant in the hip.
Scurrying down my stump,
Engulfing my paw.
Snake restricts.
Unable to shift.
Hot water,
Epsom salt.
Subdue the sting,
Relax the grip.
“Come, my husband.
Sit a spell,
And answer me this,
Why do I love cats?”
No thought, no concern.
Words found their way,
Through the maze,
He did say,
“Because you’re a psychopath.”
Once again, I did ask,
“Why do I love cats?”
Small thought,
Some concern.
Wheels turning,
Then he churned,
“Because they’re fluffy and cuddly.”
Third attempt I did seek,
“Why do I love...
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.
But before you do, make sure I’m dead.
Then burn me up and spread my ashes all over this land.
They said Wendell Garrow drowned out by Quill Meadow, but that’s not true. I saw him yesterday, walking along the ditch with his red scarf still tied neatly as always. His boots left prints like commas in the mud. You don’t get that kind of order from the dead.
The sheriff came around this morning, hat in hand, asking if I’d been down near the water the night Wendell went missing. I told him no. Said I’d been home with a bottle and my thoughts, staring at the cracked ceiling. He nodded as if...