Chapter Two – Cadaver Hunting Beneath the ice of sleep, the dream world rages lush and powerful. Real life glowed faintly, inviting her from the depths, but Persey turned away. The Bird Lady, dead by the time Persey turned ten, was found only here. In the real world the past had vanished; but in dreams…

When I heard my brother-in-law was dead, I thought my sister had probably done it. Apparently I was the only one who thought so, because my sister, an aggressively born-again Christian, is a Perfect Person. A martyr. St. Hayley. I recalled a conversation we’d had years ago, when I’d been needling her about her newfound…

II. Unfortunately, Ron was already pacing and angry when I got home. I guess it was an evening of firsts. I felt first guilt, then a cold, unpleasant wedge of fear across what was left of my gut. But in our game of emotional isometrics it wouldn’t do to show him. I had to force…

1 Seems criminal that a person has to wait thirty-nine years to acquire a garden, but that’s what happened to me. My father was a sculptor — a master of transformations. His day job was arborist so his tool was a chainsaw. He made many fantastical creatures to populate our wild garden — dragons, demons,…