Carapace n. a thick hard case or shell made of bone or chitin that covers part of the body of an animal such as a lobster. Once upon a time, in Stonington, Maine, before sunset, at the end of a hot war and the beginning of a cold one, a young woman dressed in white, […]

ALEXANDER BARRINGTON STOOD IN front of the mirror and adjusted his red Cub Scout tie. Rather, he was attempting to adjust his Cub Scout tie, because he couldn’t take his eyes off his face, a face uncharacteristically glum. His mouth was turned down. His hands were fidgeting with the gray-and-white tie, unable to do a […]

LIGHT came through the window, trickling morning all over the room. Tatiana Metanova slept the sleep of the innocent, the sleep of restless joy, of warm, white Leningrad nights, of jasmine June. But most of all, intoxicated with life, she slept the exuberant sleep of undaunted youth. She did not sleep for much longer. When […]

THERE had been a fire at Ellis Island the year before Gina came to America with her mother and brother in 1899, and so instead of arriving at the Port of New York, they had set sail into the Port of Boston. Salvo had been in a bad mood since the day they left Napoli. […]