Aurelie grows up in a seaside New England town that's haunted by bloody stories: there's the headless hitchhiker along the highway, the ghost of a Redcoat who'd died of his wounds, the bridge where you can hear a phantom baby crying.
There are smaller demons too: fathers who drink too much and mothers who put up with it; fathers who die young (from a widow-maker on the front lawn, in the case of Aurelie's dad); mothers who drink too much and smack around their children; children who come to school without lunch because there's no food in the house; the long hard winters; the way the salt air rusts everything, even the paint off your brand-new car; the tragedy of living in such a town to begin with.
But of all the horrors large and small, the one most feared is the Terror. It inhabits the woods west of town, neat the wind-bald bluff that casts itself headlong into the sea.
--excerpt from The Carriage Held But Just Ourselves
Available in print from Crosstown Press
Jack rolled over on his back, still laughing, one cheek scraped red and raw from hitting the pavement. Dad came toward me. I stepped back but couldn't move fast enough, and he grabbed me roughly by the arm. It didn’t hurt, but he’d never touched me in anger before. The club fell with a clatter to the ground.
"I'm leaving today," Dad said. "There's nothing you can do about it. Go inside." He shoved me. Opened the car door. I stumbled a step, then backed off into the grass, keeping an eye on the car.
Mom had reached me by then, and as she took me in her arms I watched Dad go into reverse, the car covered in dents and scratches. Without looking at us once, he backed down the driveway and drove away.
Jack stayed on his back as Dad left. It wasn't until the car was gone that he tried to sit up. "Guess we won't be seeing him anytime soon," he said, running his right hand along his face, his chest, feeling out where the scars were, where new scars might soon be. Mom went to him, and he allowed her to help him stand up, to walk him into the house, to clean his cuts.
I stood a while on the lawn, looking down the driveway toward the street where Dad had fled. I didn't know if I felt proud or ashamed of what we'd done, only that it was necessary. The sun was growing hot.
I went inside, and the wreckage of my brother's furious love went on its way to Washington.
--excerpt from To Die is Different than Supposed: a novel
He banked the fire and softened the lead in the pot. Lead melts low. It was a good thing Wheaton kept the scissor mold. And Father’s Colt. There were also letters, for Eleanor in St. Louis. Did Wheaton come from there?
Wheaton’s blood had dried on Ben’s back. He poured molten lead into the mold. Let it cool. Opened the clamp, popped the bullet out into the snow.
Do it just how Father said. Father was at Bull Run. At Shiloh. Father marched to the sea.
New bullets lay like acorns beneath an oak. Seeds of violence. He hoped never to use them. Hoped Wheaton’d found his place in Heaven.
--excerpt from Luck Was Not His Warden
He’s around thirty, give or take, and woke up one day crazy, or so she understands. He’s quiet, taciturn, soft-spoken for the most part, and completely off kilter. He speaks to her kindly each day, calling her Mrs. Snow and asking if her lawsuit against the theme park where she lost her right hand on the Ferris Wheel is going in her favor; asks about her husband, and his job as a superintendent of a school she’s not sure even exists in the real world.
She has a right hand, by the way, but no husband. Her name is not Snow.
Each night his family comes to the unit: his parents, his fiancée, and they look at a book, the same one every time, for the whole two hours allotted to visiting and this is the book: a coffee table masterpiece printed on luxuriously thick paper, filled with photographs of people who own vineyards and their dogs--pictures of dogs in their respective vineyards, beautifully exposed with the light of heaven falling on their noble, timeless bodies, surrounded by grapevines and sometimes with the sea falling off in the background.
---excerpt from Mrs. Snow and the Damage Done
Whit and Mad spent their nights curled against each other under a canvas tent, listening to the singing man from Philadelphia who'd been wounded in the leg. The man sang about the stars and their many names; the rise and fall of his voice was the closest thing to a lullaby that Whit had ever heard. But Mad heard a different song, one dolorous and strange, that promised the listener nothing but itself.
--excerpt from Out Beyond the Field: a novel
---Bomma said you were the one would go to college. Mama said I was the smart one, though.
---Can you just shut up? Can you? I know you're the smart one.
---Bomma said I'm not going. Because I looked like Tom. And I won't be here then.
—Vita, Bomma’s half dead and has never talked sense once in her old stupid life.
—I know. But she knows some things, Zee.
—And where'll you be? Married or somethin?
—Course not, stupid.
---You can't do anything better but to listen to people talk when you should be sleeping?
---If I slept you'd know a lot less. But Mama, she agreed with Bomma. That I looked like him.
—And what’s that mean?
—You know.
—Don’t. Please just shut up, now? Or just tell me.
—Tom’s Bomma’s boy who died. When Mama was little.
—The one who drowned?
—Yeah. You know the story.
—But why did Bomma say it? Just because you look like someone don't mean you have to die like he did.
—I don’t know. But Mama said back she knew that I wasn’t long here.
—And that doesn’t make you scared?
--Naw, Vita said. I don’t get scared any more. Only thing I get is tired.
--excerpt from Hallowed Be: a novel
We saw him come up out of the dusty part toward the water where we were, the way all men come down to the sea from dry places far off. We looked around and at him and then away from him again, because for some reason we could not keep him in our gaze, in the way that we cannot look too long at the sun. But what we did see, when we caught him in our sight, was nobody very special. He wasn't tall, or broad, or sturdy. He wasn't carrying anything but a wrapped up blanket wound around his shoulders. Nothing much at all.
We looked and then turned away our faces before he could meet our eyes, and we said to each other, this is the guy? Our bones said he was the one, though we didn't know we waited for him till just then. So we tried to believe our bodies. We also tried to say, he's no such thing, coming from away like he is, with his dirty face and his hair with burrs in it. He was nothing and eventually he became everything, and when that happened we remembered quiet this first day, the first sight, and we wondered then, how could we not see it? Or, why did we deny him, fought the way our heads cooled and stomachs quieted and the soft way every breathing thing turned toward him without meaning to?
He was a promise, but it took years until we understood the truest thing, that he'd kept his word. That was him, how he did things. He was the world, and he carried us all, always, on the thin shoulders, narrow back of a man who seemed to limp a little as he came near.
--excerpt from Twelve
There are smaller demons too: fathers who drink too much and mothers who put up with it; fathers who die young (from a widow-maker on the front lawn, in the case of Aurelie's dad); mothers who drink too much and smack around their children; children who come to school without lunch because there's no food in the house; the long hard winters; the way the salt air rusts everything, even the paint off your brand-new car; the tragedy of living in such a town to begin with.
But of all the horrors large and small, the one most feared is the Terror. It inhabits the woods west of town, neat the wind-bald bluff that casts itself headlong into the sea.
--excerpt from The Carriage Held But Just Ourselves
Available in print from Crosstown Press
Jack rolled over on his back, still laughing, one cheek scraped red and raw from hitting the pavement. Dad came toward me. I stepped back but couldn't move fast enough, and he grabbed me roughly by the arm. It didn’t hurt, but he’d never touched me in anger before. The club fell with a clatter to the ground.
"I'm leaving today," Dad said. "There's nothing you can do about it. Go inside." He shoved me. Opened the car door. I stumbled a step, then backed off into the grass, keeping an eye on the car.
Mom had reached me by then, and as she took me in her arms I watched Dad go into reverse, the car covered in dents and scratches. Without looking at us once, he backed down the driveway and drove away.
Jack stayed on his back as Dad left. It wasn't until the car was gone that he tried to sit up. "Guess we won't be seeing him anytime soon," he said, running his right hand along his face, his chest, feeling out where the scars were, where new scars might soon be. Mom went to him, and he allowed her to help him stand up, to walk him into the house, to clean his cuts.
I stood a while on the lawn, looking down the driveway toward the street where Dad had fled. I didn't know if I felt proud or ashamed of what we'd done, only that it was necessary. The sun was growing hot.
I went inside, and the wreckage of my brother's furious love went on its way to Washington.
--excerpt from To Die is Different than Supposed: a novel
He banked the fire and softened the lead in the pot. Lead melts low. It was a good thing Wheaton kept the scissor mold. And Father’s Colt. There were also letters, for Eleanor in St. Louis. Did Wheaton come from there?
Wheaton’s blood had dried on Ben’s back. He poured molten lead into the mold. Let it cool. Opened the clamp, popped the bullet out into the snow.
Do it just how Father said. Father was at Bull Run. At Shiloh. Father marched to the sea.
New bullets lay like acorns beneath an oak. Seeds of violence. He hoped never to use them. Hoped Wheaton’d found his place in Heaven.
--excerpt from Luck Was Not His Warden
He’s around thirty, give or take, and woke up one day crazy, or so she understands. He’s quiet, taciturn, soft-spoken for the most part, and completely off kilter. He speaks to her kindly each day, calling her Mrs. Snow and asking if her lawsuit against the theme park where she lost her right hand on the Ferris Wheel is going in her favor; asks about her husband, and his job as a superintendent of a school she’s not sure even exists in the real world.
She has a right hand, by the way, but no husband. Her name is not Snow.
Each night his family comes to the unit: his parents, his fiancée, and they look at a book, the same one every time, for the whole two hours allotted to visiting and this is the book: a coffee table masterpiece printed on luxuriously thick paper, filled with photographs of people who own vineyards and their dogs--pictures of dogs in their respective vineyards, beautifully exposed with the light of heaven falling on their noble, timeless bodies, surrounded by grapevines and sometimes with the sea falling off in the background.
---excerpt from Mrs. Snow and the Damage Done
Whit and Mad spent their nights curled against each other under a canvas tent, listening to the singing man from Philadelphia who'd been wounded in the leg. The man sang about the stars and their many names; the rise and fall of his voice was the closest thing to a lullaby that Whit had ever heard. But Mad heard a different song, one dolorous and strange, that promised the listener nothing but itself.
--excerpt from Out Beyond the Field: a novel
---Bomma said you were the one would go to college. Mama said I was the smart one, though.
---Can you just shut up? Can you? I know you're the smart one.
---Bomma said I'm not going. Because I looked like Tom. And I won't be here then.
—Vita, Bomma’s half dead and has never talked sense once in her old stupid life.
—I know. But she knows some things, Zee.
—And where'll you be? Married or somethin?
—Course not, stupid.
---You can't do anything better but to listen to people talk when you should be sleeping?
---If I slept you'd know a lot less. But Mama, she agreed with Bomma. That I looked like him.
—And what’s that mean?
—You know.
—Don’t. Please just shut up, now? Or just tell me.
—Tom’s Bomma’s boy who died. When Mama was little.
—The one who drowned?
—Yeah. You know the story.
—But why did Bomma say it? Just because you look like someone don't mean you have to die like he did.
—I don’t know. But Mama said back she knew that I wasn’t long here.
—And that doesn’t make you scared?
--Naw, Vita said. I don’t get scared any more. Only thing I get is tired.
--excerpt from Hallowed Be: a novel
We saw him come up out of the dusty part toward the water where we were, the way all men come down to the sea from dry places far off. We looked around and at him and then away from him again, because for some reason we could not keep him in our gaze, in the way that we cannot look too long at the sun. But what we did see, when we caught him in our sight, was nobody very special. He wasn't tall, or broad, or sturdy. He wasn't carrying anything but a wrapped up blanket wound around his shoulders. Nothing much at all.
We looked and then turned away our faces before he could meet our eyes, and we said to each other, this is the guy? Our bones said he was the one, though we didn't know we waited for him till just then. So we tried to believe our bodies. We also tried to say, he's no such thing, coming from away like he is, with his dirty face and his hair with burrs in it. He was nothing and eventually he became everything, and when that happened we remembered quiet this first day, the first sight, and we wondered then, how could we not see it? Or, why did we deny him, fought the way our heads cooled and stomachs quieted and the soft way every breathing thing turned toward him without meaning to?
He was a promise, but it took years until we understood the truest thing, that he'd kept his word. That was him, how he did things. He was the world, and he carried us all, always, on the thin shoulders, narrow back of a man who seemed to limp a little as he came near.
--excerpt from Twelve
© 2024 ALISSA BUTTERWORTH
