The mountain had been waiting for her since before she was born.Wren had always known this, in the way that village children know things without being told. The mountain was there, always there, looming over their valley like a promise or a threat. Her grandmother had told her stories, of the god...
Read MoreThe manor had been waiting for her.Sasha felt it the moment she stepped through the iron gates, her rental car sputtering behind her like a dying thing. The gravel driveway curved through overgrown gardens, past fountains that hadn't flowed in decades, toward a house that rose from the mist l...
Read MoreThe cabin had looked bigger in the photos.That was Susan's first thought as she stood in the doorway, her suitcase in one hand, her marriage in the other, trying to remember why this had seemed like a good idea. The cabin was small, one room, really, with a bed in the corner, a wood stove, a ...
Read MoreThe thing about being seven hundred years old was that you ran out of fucks to give approximately six hundred and fifty years ago.Aldric had been extremely clear about this. He'd made it known in every possible way, through his reclusive lifestyle, his complete lack of interest in human affai...
Read MoreThe idea came to her on a Tuesday, which was ironic because nothing important ever happened on Tuesdays.Kerry was sprawled across John's couch, the same couch she'd been sprawled across since they were nineteen years old and figuring out how to be adults together. Ten years later, the cou...
Read MoreThe munch was held at a coffee shop called Common Grounds, which was either ironic or perfectly appropriate depending on your perspective.Tessa had spent twenty minutes circling the block before finally parking, another ten sitting in her car breathing through the anxiety, and now she stood on th...
Read MoreThe document was perfect.Forty-seven pages, single-spaced, every clause meticulously crafted. Definitions section, scope of agreement, duration and termination provisions. Rights and responsibilities of both parties. Limits and boundaries, explicitly stated and severable. A dispute resolution mec...
Read MoreThe mountain had been his for a thousand years.Longer, if one counted the centuries before the humans came with their maps and their names and their endless, grasping need to claim things. He'd been here when the peak was younger, sharper, still learning to wear the shape of stone. He'd b...
Read MoreThe key was in an envelope marked "For Paige," tucked inside a larger envelope marked "To be opened after my death," which was itself buried beneath three decades of tax returns in her grandmother's mahogany desk.Paige found it on the third day of clearing the house.The fu...
Read MoreThe email had seemed harmless enough.December Selection: "Midnight Heat" by J.C. Wilde. Please have read by the 15th. Wine and snacks provided. —MargaretWhat none of them knew, what Margaret herself didn't know until she was forty-seven pages in and breathing heavily on the su...
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