Loren McDougal, he was my grandfather. You may not know the name, but the stories? Everyone knows the stories. You grew up with his lyrical, metrical, fanciful tales of faeries – he insisted on the old spelling – in the garden. Everyone younger than sixty read them as a child. Twenty-three books he crafted, lovingly detailed masterpieces with lavish illustrations of proper little faeries going about their proper little faerie business in the fictional front garden of a fictional hedge-row cottage on a fictional lane in some nonsense town in Scotland.

Saul was nervous, more nervous than usual. He'd done this several times before, but for some reason this time felt different. Inhaling deeply, he shook his arms and shoulders, trying to relieve some of the tension.

"Next," the frail woman at the window called. A woman stood up from her seat in line, holding a large vase wrapped in a blanket. She clutched at it like a child. Saul supposed such a thing might not be too far from the truth.

We hated visitors, and I hated working the gate. The best days guarding the gate were boring. Those days my big brother, Charley, and I sat at the picnic table in the gatehouse –- our old school bus stop, expanded and fortified -- played card games, and watched the leaves skitter along the road. On those good, boring days we didn’t see anyone we knew, and we didn’t see anyone we didn’t know. The morning started out like that, but just past noon the cool breeze brought along an old black woman. She was dressed for the road; her layered coats and hoods flapped in the breeze. A banged-up aluminum cane supported her left side.

All day long the ponies thundered back and forth across the steppes at the base of the Styric mountains, where the tribe gathered each spring. Berilla could hear them; a deep, muted rumble that grew and grew and peaked, shaking the ground and setting dust motes to dancing on the hot air inside the wagon. The curtains, drawn tight against the sun, dropped jewel-colored shadows across the floor, the cushions, the hand-painted tiles that ran beneath the enameled stove and up the wall behind. Berilla laid her cheek against their coolness, and sighed.

Death came for Melanie James when she was seventy-six pounds. Her mother was in the middle of berating her when he walked into her hospital room, dressed like a doctor.

"You're selfish," her mother accused, her voice an angry hiss. She said more, and Melanie tried to listen, but the sound kept slipping in her ears--her mother shouted, her mother whispered, her mother's voice became white noise.

"I'll let go if you promise not to scream." The hand on my mouth was about to let go when it repeated, "Do you promise?" a voice asked.

I nodded yes as vigorously as possible. Much longer, and I'd black out. Tight ropes bound my wrists and ankles, but his companion had yet to take her boot off my throat. At least they hadn't killed me yet. If the riots outside hadn’t taken out the power grid, I might have seen her face. Then again, if the power was on, the security system would have been working and likely I wouldn't be in this mess.