Instead, you go home and you shut off every light in the house. You wait until there are only streetlamps outside, until the night is black and vicious, oozing tropical heat. And then:

“Papa?”

Something in the darkness stirs, a textured sound you cannot quite place, a shifting that could be the susurrus of sinew, or the migration of tissues over fat, or wet footsteps dragging along the carpet.

“I love you,” you tell the emptiness, the bruise-black dark. The words sound small and vulnerable in the waiting dark, almost child-like, completely inadequate. The silence eats them whole.

“I love you,” you repeat, the second word snagging fishbone-sharp in the roof of your mouth. “I loved you so much, papa. And I am so, so sorry I didn’t say it enough. Didn’t call you on your birthday, didn’t tell you I forgave you. Didn’t forgive you. I’m sorry I stayed angry for so long. I’m sorry I didn’t—”

Wet breath against your cheek, a charnel stink. You persevere, however, clenching teeth against the fear that pulsates through you.

“I’m sorry I didn’t say I love you enough. I’m sorry I kept running. I love you. I love you so much.”

Your father says nothing, does nothing. Only stands there a bone’s width from your skin, still, silent, and forever out of reach.

publication history

“How Selkies are Made” is original to this collection.

“Don’t Turn on The Lights” originally appeared in Nightmare Magazine #61, 2017.

“A Leash of Foxes, Their Stories Like Barter” originally appeared in Lightspeed Magazine #111, 2019.

“Radio Werewolf” originally appeared in Fireside Fiction, March 2017.

“Recite Her the Names of Pain” originally appeared in Sword and Sonnet, 2018.

“Kiss, Don’t Tell” originally appeared in Pseudopod #563, 2017.

“An Ocean of Eyes” originally appeared in The Dark #8, 2015.

“The Truth That Lies Under Skin and Meat” originally appeared in Gamut, August, 2017.

“Mothers, We Dream” originally appeared in Cutting Edge: New Stories of Mystery and Crime by Women Writers, (Joyce Carol Oates, ed.) 2019.

“A Secret of Devils” originally appeared in Cast of Wonders, #276, 2017.

“Goddess, Worm” originally appeared in Uncanny #14, 2017.

“A Priest of Vast and Distant Places” originally appeared in Apex Magazine #106, 2018.

“The Games We Play” originally appeared in Clockwork Phoenix Vol. 5, (Mike Allen, ed.) 2016.

“For the Things We Never Said” originally appeared in Daily Science Fiction, Nov. 10, 2016.

“She Who Hungers, She Who Waits” originally appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, #248, 2018.

“Monologue by an unnamed mage, recorded at the brink of the end” originally appeared in Uncanny, #25, 2015.

“You Do Nothing but Freefall” (with A. Maus) originally appeared in Lightspeed #94, 2018.

“The Ghost Stories We Tell Each Other Around Photon Fires” originally appeared in Gamut, Jan. 2017.

“The Quiet Like a Homecoming” originally appeared in Lightspeed Magazine #93, 2018.

“And In Our Daughters, We Find a Voice” originally appeared in The Dark, #18, 2016.

“In the Rustle of Pages” originally appeared in Shimmer #25, 2015.

“Bargains By the Slant-Light” originally appeared in Apex Magazine, Oct. 2018.

“Some Breakable Things” originally appeared in The Dark, #16, 2016.

acknowledgements