I-96 is quiet while Libby drives east from Lansing, into the big same-y smear of suburbs north and west of Detroit. What must be thousands of abandoned cars still line the route, those whose drivers were abruptly bodily assumed into heaven—or whatever. Most of them have been pushed to the shoulder of the road by now, and in a few places an effort has clearly been made to start towing them away. Libby wonders what’s going to happen to all of them. Can you recycle a whole car?

Enchanted mirrors. Once restricted to royalty—and only a few of them—these days they seem to be everywhere: in crumbling mansions, sparkling penthouse pieds-à-terre, rundown apartments, executive office buildings, and even the occasional meticulously maintained castle. For those trading in enchanted mirrors—or just looking for one—this probably seems like a good thing. But the increased abundance of enchanted mirrors does have a more sinister side.

“Nonsense,” said the rocking horse with the bristle brush mane. “You’ll never be more than what you are.” “Mrs. Bunn says that being grows with time,” began the wooden comb, heirloom from the old country, mislabeled midcentury modern. “No. Time is being’s enemy. And Mrs. Bunn is in the dumpster now, on her way to a landfill.”

I felt them as the sun came through the curtains on a Saturday morning. First, a light papery brush against my shoulder that I could dismiss as the last minutes of a dream. Then a blunt edge digging into my cheek, faintly smelling of my favorite bookstore.

The Myopic Cryptozoologist – Everyone’s least favorite human, this persistent creature is a narrow-minded cousin of perhaps our favorite type of human—the cryptozoologist—and differs from that specimen in several key ways.

October 8th – I found more skin this morning. Pale flakes polka-dotting my blue sheets, grouped there as if they had conspired to jump together. Little sailors abandoning ship to take their chances in the expanse of my bed. I look my normal self in the mirror and find no red patches on my torso or legs. My back, maybe? It’s been itchy.

Once a year, during the Sturgeon Moon, a house appears off Seven Mile Line Road in the heart of Chickasee County. Native grasses surround it, thick and tall, protecting the house and its sprawling kitchen garden from view. The being who lives inside the house calls herself Helga Tillinger when she manifests here.

Flaming orange tongues devour the walls around us. The soldiers outside batter at the old wooden doors of the back entrance. Gingko holds fast, the ornate mural of gingko tree branches and golden leaves glowing like painted sunshine.

It takes the lieutenant one hundred years to climb the hill to Lao Po’s house. By then, the warlords have come and gone, the Republic has risen and fallen, and developers have been petitioning the ruling party to demolish Lao Po’s hilltop hut for decades.

After a decade of abyss-diving, it wasn’t the jagged stalagmite teeth, puckered slate skin, or uneven, fin-like growths that chilled Lifang; it was the creature’s expression—lidless eyes and too-wide jaws shaped like a perpetual scream.