Torsade Literary Space 
Are You Haunted (part thirty)
Are You Haunted (part thirty) The kitchen door stood back on its hinges. He had not really doubted it. “I’m Powell Kenzie,” he told his uninvited guest. “Sure you are. Alfin Tovey.” A handshake, and Alfin preceded him into his house. “What you need is some […]
The Totem-Maker (part eighty-seven)
The Totem-Maker Chapter Nine The Recalcitrant One (part eighty-seven) At first his new life went well. He ordered the courtier thrown into the sea. He was highhanded with his queen, though to save herself she smiled and made obeisance to this husband. But, […]
Story: Sympathy for the Torturer (part five)
Sympathy for the Torturer (part five) Down the coast. That must be the expression. Herward used it, and Herward came from there. Down the coast they had sat on the daybed in Anton’s room, he with the sisters, talking. “Oh, poor Anton. You’re so easy. You’ve never had anything.” […]
Story: Sympathy for the Torturer (part four)
Sympathy for the Torturer (part four) “If we were to bring a confederate of hers into custody, if some resister knew where the grenade had come from… You wouldn’t expect us to be nice about letting him conceal that information?” Herward had forced this argument before, on every occasion […]
Story: Sympathy for the Torturer (part three)
Sympathy for the Torturer (part three) The guard had pantomimed at Anton. “That’s right. Take those off…you get me? You can’t hide your face indoors.” He saw his dark glasses crushed in a pocket. Tossed in a bin marked Lost and Found. “Prove those are yours.” He would have […]
The Totem-Maker (part eighty-six)
The Totem-Maker Chapter Nine The Recalcitrant One (part eighty-six) A herder of cattle there was, who lived far from the royal seat, from the city of wealth. He was free, his life was peaceful, and his name was Alchas. One day as he […]
The Totem-Maker (part eighty-five)
The Totem-Maker Chapter Nine The Recalcitrant One (part eighty-five) I wanted that loneliness I hadn’t yet found; I wanted to escape a hailing exchange. Hospitality required that strangers keep the road together, until all had been said of who, where, and what. I […]
Are You Haunted (part twenty-nine)
Are You Haunted (part twenty-nine) “But people would assume Dennis, wouldn’t they…? Has rights, like you said.” “Yes, of course. And that’s all there is to it.” After a pause too long, Isobel finished without sarcasm, “The Drybrooks had ten years of storytelling by the time […]
Story: Drownings (conclusion)
Drownings (part eleven) “How…? I don’t believe you.” “Our own provincial da Vinci, Stephen…now I recall. Victor Tambinder himself, the ancestor. The magnets in their circles, the great ring of smaller rings, to move perpetually with the rotation of the earth.” Among attractions in this district of the […]
Story: Drownings (part ten)
Drownings (part ten) In the morning… Fog more than fogs of memory, riddled with corpse dust, one could only call it, figures in the dress of ages, with a fish-belly gleam to their skins, pressing into visibility but eased back. As though the heavy mist were a membrane. McAlley […]
