Time stretched and bent around her as she sat. She’d been sitting in this chair by the door for some time. She’d been sitting in this chair for a week, a week of just sitting in the chair, staring into space. It seemed like forever. It seemed like no time at all. It seemed like she’d just moved here last summer, but it had been three years already. Three years of unrelenting hard work and fear. Fear of everything, it seemed. Fear of the dark. Fear of the new boar in the barn,

If only she hadn’t brought the damn dog. All the old farmers would tell you, always leave the dogs at home. But they were stupid, so so stupid. Not just about the dogs. About other things too. Like burning green wood. Or taking Sundays off. Bad things happened if you worked on Sundays. Especially if you also burned green wood. Like the fire that destroyed the commune. Because they’d been burning too much green wood and hadn’t gotten around to cleaning out the chimney properly

[Continued from post of March 22, 2018] 1. Dream Boy I knew it, I knew it, I knew it, thought Dream Boy. Those stupid cows have gone all the way down to MacPherson’s barley field again. Don’t they remember how sick it made them last time? We nearly lost Emily, for cryin’ out loud. Emily was one of the few cows Dream Boy actually liked. From the scent trail, they’d been gone quite a while too. And the sun was going down. It set quick this time of year, once it started to go. H

1. Molly Molly peered cautiously over the fence. She turned her huge head one way, then the other, muttering to herself as one of those big noisy things — whaddya call em? trucks, that’s right — one of those big trucks appeared at the top of the hill, heading her way. She quickly put her head down, reaching delicately for the grass at her feet, nibbling at a few blades here and there, just for show, in case the driver was looking. She didn’t want to seem conspicuous, here by