Sublime

By 1842 she had published a large body of work, broad enough in scope for her to open negotiations with the Harper brothers of New York, who agreed to publish a collection of her New England short stories under the collective title The Mayflower. She received an advance royalty payment of $100, and in the next decade the book earned an additional

To the white folks of Pottstown, Doc Roberts was the kind of man whose bespeckled countenance belonged on breakfast cereal boxes. The kind, gentle country doc. Friend to all, deliverer of babies, a wonderful man, a Presbyterian. But for the black folks of the Hill, Doc was a running joke: “Why go see Doc Roberts and pay to die?” He was a special

People from another planet will wonder what’s wrong with earthly names, that it takes so many different ones to tag a thing. But here he lies, alongside this friend he has known only weeks, joined again after so many lifetimes. Nick and Olivia, Watchman and Maidenhair—the complete quartet of them—open to the January night, under topless columns of

benevolence.

and read on the TV that Raven Wallace was the name of the woman who had disappeared. Ada lifted her head off the floor. The caption said that the mother of three had vanished from her own home in the middle of the afternoon. Police were asking for information. Then the words were replaced by words about smoke from the fires that were presently

pitiless.

You who do not discriminate between the dead and the living, who are, in consequence, immune to foreshadowing, you may not know how much terror we bear, the spotted leaf, the red leaves of the maple falling even in August, in early darkness: I am responsible

The seven men let their arrows fly. Each found its mark in a soft part of Bone Bull’s body: his neck, his flanks, the hanging folds of his belly. With each shot, the monstrous Buffalo’s efforts grew weaker…until the last breath squeezed from him and he collapsed. The herd was grunting in despair. ‘You!’ the Cottonwood called to them. ‘You all