Story Excerpts

The Heiress. The Hireling.
by Joyce Carol Oates

(in memoriam Julio C.)

She has begun to sleep more soundly in the new place at the edge of the lake large as an inland sea. She has begun to sleep with more passion, hearing waves in the night like great tongues lapping. Her dreams thrill her even as they exhaust her. Her dreams caress her even as they batter her. Her dreams are a source of intense love-sensations for her even as they cause her to weep in the luxury of guilt for she is a (new) widow and a (new) heiress and the fact is the elderly husband had chosen her, she had not chosen him; the elderly husband had loved her, and wanted her, and it had made him very happy, the elderly husband had died of sheer happiness, and the madness of such happiness, marrying her. READ MORE

Cadere ex Stellae
by Pat Black

“This is some place,” DS Linklater said, gesturing towards the sky, the sea, and the rocks. “I mean, if you were going to do it . . .”

“Don’t say that,” D.I. McIntyre said, shortly.

“Well . . . You know what I mean.”

McIntyre had dressed for the occasion. A long dark coat complemented her tall, slim frame and long limbs. For the most part, the buttons resisted the wind, which came in great gusts and shrieks. It brought the smell of the sea that drowned the background, a silvery tumult raging at the moon. READ MORE