Corina shivered beneath the layers—a sheet, a quilt, and a calico blanket her great-grandmother had stitched. Perspiration gathered on her forehead, beads of ice. It was the middle of summer, but her sweat was unnatural.

She hated the fever, the way it melted minutes into hours, muscle convulsions and chattering teeth. But the bubbling pit of nausea at her core was unrelated to her illness; it was the guilt of forcing her daughter into the role of caretaker. Lydia had enough to worry about as m

I awake to the taste of dirt: fine, gritty. I roll my tongue over my teeth, suck the granules down. Mud and wet fill my nostrils, and I pretend it’s the scent of my clay hearth, that there’s soup over the fire and I’ve just returned home from the market. Perhaps I had traded a bundle of parsnips for a small lump of red meat, patted dry before rubbing in the spices—black pepper, ginger, cardamon. Broiled and then left to cook in the stock.

I want to open my mouth and bite into the earth. My fina

Finny the Fox was missing, and Lillian started to panic. Every morning, the animals gathered on the windowsill, delivery staff on the left and babies on the right. But today Finny failed to report. In fact, he was nowhere to be seen, and the pail where he slept was empty. Her throat tightened.

Where had she seen him last? A family of pirates adopted Finny yesterday, so she checked their hideout in Dirty Clothes Bay. The stowaway wasn’t on the ship. The pirates suggested the kitchen; after all,

Beverly hated gas stations, and this one was no exception. A concrete knoll in the middle of nowhere, Florida, inhabited solely by gnats and moths and a surly attendant with a grey-eyed stare.