Torsade Literary Space 
Story: The Ad Said (conclusion)
The Ad Said (part three) Along the rails was a place to walk, a narrow trench, not clearly intended…or clearly not intended…for public use. A wrong step could lose you your shoe. More rotten luck if it happened. “I can go first,” Hermie said. “Look […]
Story: The Ad Said (part two)
The Ad Said (part three) If there was a seat on the bus, they would have grabbed it, dreamed up a dodge when it counted. The sister act had got them out of bus fares before. But so many women seeking this work filled even the […]
Story: The Ad Said (part one)
The Ad Said (part three) “Girls wanted. See? Good wages. Steady hours.” “But look here. Must pass physical exam.” “You’re crazy,” their mother said. Hester smacked Hermina’s arm. “Come on! Let’s go down to the corner.” The corner meant the drugstore, where they could take a […]
Are You Haunted (part sixteen)
Are You Haunted (part sixteen) “And she told you she’d given my husband a few dollars, and the car to earn them with. What’s it got to do with me, if she’ll lend him a bit when he asks?” “Miss Gilshannon, I had a conversation with […]
Story: Be a Helper (part five)
Be A Helper (part five) You may know the adage, that a thing of nature has nature’s wisdom in it; a thing of man, man’s. (Jorinda would not allow it woman’s.) Bede kept a cow, and for the milk—if his neighbor’s bull came wandering—let her calve. When […]
Story: Be a Helper (part four)
Be A Helper (part four) All these matters of a household, and the people in it, made difficulties for Bede. He had stuck to not having a servant, in the years following his mother’s death. It was his resolve that commanding a person stole one’s joy and […]
Story: Be a Helper (part three)
Be A Helper (part three) Whimbrel tumbled from the roof of the shed he’d been turfing, a progress Bede did not want yet to observe at close quarters. Finch and Bunting glided from a high gable window, by the craft of their garments (cardigans otherwise, and double-ruffled […]
Story: Be a Helper (part two)
Be A Helper (part two) Bede’s trees flanked a river that Pocketlanders called the Pebbleway; a viny, mossy, dewy forest, where rainclouds hovered for days after a sea storm had blown inland. For days, needles and leaves wept themselves dry. Bede loved his trees. His six hills, […]
Story: Be a Helper (part one)
Be A Helper (part one) Now it is the case with sprites, that one strong rule curtails them. In the Fairy Realm are a thousand variants, as to types and strengths of magic; and likely a thousand areas of specialization. Groundworts and lugdors have their wishes, as […]
Story: Tourmaline (part two)
Tourmaline (part two) He felt, for the first time with Palma, unconciliating. She had left him here with dehydrated cheese, tins labeled meat product, raisins, and sour, spoiled fruit drink. He was tipping in the window and breaking icicles for water, hoping they were dusted with corpses and ruin, that […]