The happiness of my days is the result of a collaborative effort with some of the most thoughtful and loving people I know: my parents, my sister, my brother and his family. I especially want to thank my three sons, Ethan, Aidan, and Ryan, for their humor and kindness and for their patience with their often distracted father. Finally, my thanks to Gillian, for marrying me and letting me have a place in her life and at her side. I love you so much. When we’re together, I always feel like a king.

Joe Hill

Exeter, New Hampshire

The Witching Season, 2018

About the Author

JOE HILL has written screenplays, novels, comics, and many short stories, including this one.

A LITTLE SORROW

A man named Atkinson—as lonely as a castaway and as empty as a cupboard—found his way to a dank curio shop at the end of a nameless alley. He asked the shopkeep if he had something for the pain.

The shopkeep put his hand on a sickly child, with dark rings under his colorless eyes. “I can sell you a small persistent sorrow. Guaranteed for life, very little upkeep, and utterly faithful. This one has a faint odor of mothballs. Otherwise? Mint.”

They soon agreed on a price, and Atkinson sank to one knee so the Little Sorrow could climb on his back, where it would remain for the rest of his natural life. The small child whispered that Atkinson was no good; his life had been for nothing; his mother had felt disgust for him from the first moment Atkinson fastened onto her breast. The child told him this with great solemnity and quiet conviction.

Atkinson staggered as he rose to his feet, felt a pinch in the small of his back, the weight already making him ache with fatigue. He inhaled deeply (a dizzying reek of mothballs) and let out a great sigh of effort—and relief.

“Company at last,” he said, and he carried the whispering child out with him, feeling much lighter than when he had come in.

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Also by Joe Hill

Strange Weather

The Fireman

NOS4A2

Horns

Heart-Shaped Box

20th Century Ghosts (story collection)

Graphic Novels

Locke & Key, Volumes 1–6 (with Gabriel Rodríguez)

Wraith (with Charles Paul Wilson III)

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