Previously… It was an aunt, or neighbor lady, or someone's mother (not Darla's) who said the trick to unlocking life's mysteries was knowing how to make a really flaky pie crust. The details of the conversation she struggled to remember were hazy, but there would have been no conversation to try to recall at all…

Previously… A believer in signs, I am. So Universe, send me a sign that my existence is all in my mind. Give me a little nudge that life is a figment of my imagination. You know I got one of those. If reality is a maze, or puzzle, or computer simulation to figure out, what…

Previously… Words in the right order conjure incredible visions. So do words in the incorrect order. It all depends on what it is you need to see. Belief in something bigger than a breadbox helps. Whatever your thorn-in-the-side happens to be, make it hard to pluck out. We live our days shadowed by at least…

Previously… but she ran away from reality and hid out in a nunnery. she was young, impressionable, given to respiratory illnesses, and not very well-educated to begin with. austerity and devotion. piety and poverty. hell, anyone'd hallucinate on a diet of too much prayer and too little calories. incense'll go straight to the brain with…

Previously… Hidden within paintDarla's art is familyBloodlines are erased and now for an observation curious and dark: "Puzzle pieces, when put together, never show things as they really are."

Previously… And into The Book That Someone Will Read Someday, Darla Varney writes: Damn me if these scars don't open up at the worst possible time! Who's going to even want to come near me at the Prairie View? May as well kiss all my hard work goodbye what with changing bandages every five minutes.…

Previously… Darla reached into her windbreaker pocket and traced the pattern on the wooden disc over and over again with her index finger. Gebo. She made three sets of runes during the offseason when he'd brought over some felled apple wood after a storm had blown through the area. He just so happened to be…

Previously… rap taptap rap muffled greeting/expletive/retching coming from other side of dew-dripping glass are you going to sit in the cab of this pickup all day? puppies growl-howlingowls screech-squawkingwaves smash-crashing little girl lost oh, wait…if that's who i think it is… calm down, darla, you've done this before inhale exhale inhale exhale inhale exhale inhale…

Previously… Pockets stuffed with messages. Darla dreaded the feel of crumpled balls of paper against her smooth skin. The notes, though. She never could figure out where they came from. Her hand, quite possibly, but the penmanship was all over the map to the point where Darla forgot what her handwriting looked like. She turned…

Previously… Dr. Makeda works with younger patients. Kids who are neglected, abused, witness to unspeakable violence. Most of the children have difficulty articulating what they've seen or what has been done to them in their affluent suburban homes or low income high-rises. Evil doesn't care where it lays its head. Some of Dr. Makeda's patients…