ALT Digital illustration of a woman with thick curly hair trying to access an ATM. Text reads, “Before 1974… women weren’t allowed to have a bank account or apply for credit by themselves.”

ALT THE ILLUSTRATED WOMAN by Melissa Bobe AVAILABLE NOW

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ALT The distress I felt in taking them back to the train was immeasurable. As we made our way up the stone streets, I wondered at how quickly I had come to care for these children. What had changed in my heart in mere days? They were certainly sweet girls-- easy to adore-- but who I was felt altered to my bones, as though I had shifted to accommodate something I couldn't identify. I realized, as I tried in vain to get Kya to linger awhile and push at the curfew imposed upon our beautiful day, that it must be the hazard that seemed to infuse their lives, the fear I saw in those eyes that should have known no greater sadness than the loss of a mother at an unfairly young age. -an excerpt from "Indelible"

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ALT They totaled seven in number: three girls and four women. Luce had known from the first shift through the portal mirror that divisiveness would be only too natural to fall to. And then someone would be left behind, lost to a parallel dimension and vulnerable to the beasts that hunted them. She was stoic with the others. There was no time to exhibit anything beyond strength.

ALT Under the facade she offered her companions, this makeshift family for which she was responsible, was a searing and constant agony she had locked down in her heart, the part of her that had closed with the sounds of her daughter's final scream. Strength was all she could know; she let it flood her, overtake her entirely, so that there was room for nothing else. Strength was the ocean around a fortress beneath which she had trapped her own pain, separate from her. She made herself this way to survive, because they needed her. -an excerpt from "The Mirror"

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ALT I remember all of the facts of my thirteenth summer. It was the summer that I almost lost not one, but both of my brothers for good. Instead, I made powerful enemies, engaged them in a battle of sorts, and came out the other side with victory blazing at my back.

ALT But the sensory details are what have really stayed with me all these years, beyond the facts of those strange events: the chill I felt when I began to understand what I was up against; the sounds of the woods all around us, trees upon trees and everything alive within them; most of all, that unwavering heat, the likes of which I'd never felt before and hope to never encounter again. -an excerpt from "These Dark Deeds"

ALT Read more of "These Dark Deeds" and other stories from the collection 12.17.2024