by Sarah Walker   It is the first time I have been home in seven years. I watch the windows, fixed on the blobs of light inside. I wait for the house to turn completely dark and when it does, … Read more

by Alice Shechter We heard a soft knock on the door. Kathy jumped to open it; she often took charge, the de facto Wendy to all of our lost boys, or rather, lost people, at the commune. Susanne stood in … Read more

by Seth D. Slater Everyone was safe in the treehouse: sheltered from eye-patched pirates woodpeg limping with a loudmouthed parrot on the shoulder, blackspots buried in trousers, curses pocketed for future exhortation. Wind blew through autumnal sails as we cut … Read more

by Becky Tuch The first phone call came on a Wednesday evening. The guidance counselor at Michael’s school. Disturbed, he said he was, by some of Michael’s recent in-school behavior. He referred to Michael as your son and then, moments … Read more

by Bridget Apfeld It was summer, the ugly stretch of August. White days of heat. Every night banks of thunderheads gathered on the Atlantic, and heat lightning split the Carolina pines straight down the center, their bark peeled like a … Read more

by BRANDON CLIPPINGER Evie shifted her feet in the scorched grass, then switched her pocketbook from the crook of one elbow to the other. The complex was so quiet. But then again, who would want to come out and make … Read more

by SANDRA HEADEN At eight months, Lena’s belly was as big as four watermelons. Must be twins, all the women said. Miss Annabelle, the town midwife, was sure they’d be boys. Lena hoped for girls, with nary a trace of … Read more

by KATHLEEN SANDS Otabenga stood and spoke with purpose: “I will undergo both trials on the same day.”   Under his prestigious hat of spotted fur, Old Liboyo lowered his forehead. “That would be too much pain at once. Let … Read more

by STEVE PEET The boy lay in a dried out wallow beneath freshly cut rhododendron boughs. To passersby, had there been any, it was an ordinary brush pile worthy of no notice whatsoever. Except for a fuzzy pink hippo seizing … Read more