The wind is howling. I can hear it outside the hut, whistling among the rocks. Blowing snow. It’s the first real storm of the winter, and night has come to the lands surrounding us. The sun won’t rise again for six months. We’ll be waiting, when it does. The firelight throws shadows onto the hide…
Don’t step on the leaves. I repeat it to myself over and over again. Don’t step on the leaves. Don’t step on the leaves. The forest floor is bare, as bare as if fire has swept through in the last few days. The ground is dark, black as coal, and ivy clings to the trees.…
In the barn, he tells me, his voice shaking with haste. There’s an old cellar and a pile of straw. It’s the best they can do. I don’t question it. The barn door is heavy, almost too heavy for me, especially with a baby strapped to my chest. But I get it open, then closed…
Please. Please, you say, your hands folded in prayer. A daughter, a child, with knots in your hair. Whatever I’ll give, whatever I have, It’s never enough. Never enough. I’m rich, you said, Or rich to you, I eat at night and sleep in a bed, There are coins in my purse, I’m always…
They come with the food at dawn’s first breath, when the light is still weak and they don’t have to see our faces or the disease clinging to our hands, our throats. Their carts are full of food for us, vegetables and grain given by charitable men and rich women in the cities for the…
We take them out of the cages after the moon rises, when the silver light falls on the waves. Faeries. They flutter out of the boat, skimming the water, touching it with their tiny hands and laughing in voices that sound like the whisper of wind through willow leaves. They love the sea. The waves.…
A.R. Geiger