The storm is on the horizon when I wake up. Low, tumbled clouds loom over the forest, gray as soot in the wind. I go for water at the stream, same as every other morning, but it’s choked with ice, and the branches hanging over the water are furry with hoarfrost. Winter is coming. I’ve…
A bare bulb hangs from the ceiling. Dust ghosts around it, gold in the weak light it casts. The children are whimpering, although they all know better than to cry out loud. Not here. Not when we’re in so much danger. My son is sitting in my lap. He’s barely four, but he knows to…
She already knows it’s me when I knock on her door, even before she answers. Only I come here. No one else dares. No one else is so stupid. “This is the last time, I promise,” I tell her, already pleading, hoping she’ll let me in. She hasn’t, once or twice. Last time she threatened…
Time to be a little candid. We’re all readers here, right? We all love books, we all have stayed up much too late one night or another, because we only had a hundred pages left and we couldn’t just give up. And I would hazard a guess that we all have that one book. The…
They close the doors at nine, after the last reader has gone home. The librarian checks the locks and turns out the light, and leaves her desk lamp on. For the stories. They like to be able to see at night, when they come out to play. She told me that. She tells all of…
They nest in the spruce trees above my house. I see them sometimes, when I come out for water or to chop wood. They’re as silent as ghosts, gray and still, watching me with huge eyes. They fly away if I stay out too long, but I don’t blame them. I never liked company either.…
A.R. Geiger