I myself bore witness to the destruction of that most miraculous clockwork, and what remains allows only for positive identification.

The house was an old, old two-storey lump, very square and not graceful, made of red brick that had to peep through thick trellises of ivy creeper and a roof that liked shedding tiles.

A shout louder than the others pierces her armor—disparaging words about her chubby cheeks and oversized thighs. She doesn’t care. Nor is she afraid.

The Odad, my husband’s people, worshipped wolves and stars and this Godless abandoned city, and now my husband was dead.

A baby grew from the apple tree in the backyard last spring. Not quite a baby; a little shrunken fetus that was maybe only two or three months along.

The store keeper’s daughter is bold. She’s the only one that dares to address me. “It’s your fault that it’s always winter.”

A girl drops down from the branches where she’s been perching like some tree frog in black. She starts strolling along behind me, imitating my walk like a bad mime.

Let’s start when the children reported the fairy in the attic.

It was on a day in March that he created stars. Not a normal day in March, perhaps, because it was the last month of junior high school.

Jack had been writing poems for Lillian, but they’d all come out tangled, embarrassing messes. What were words to her anyway? If he gave her something she could touch, then things would be different.