Deep Autumn

The time between the waning of the Hunter's Moon and All Hallows' Eve is what the old-timers call Deep Autumn, when the clocks will be turned back and the curtains drawn against unwanted eyes. It is a period of reminiscences and backward glances. It is the season of sleepless nights when accumulated sins flicker in the mind's eye like leave dancing in the bitter wind. Presented here are fifteen stories of the fall-and the lies and regrets that accompany the plummet.

In Deep Autumn, a young girl suffers brain damage after falling from a tree and is venerated as a saint with healing abilities by her neighbors; a Ouija board session draws blood, while a survivor of childhood trauma tries not to float; the block where sixty-four souls were consumed in eight houses becomes consecrated ground; a couple are trapped in a motel room by the ghosts of what might have been and what will never be; a writer recovering from addiction is seduced by the legend of the Lord's Finger; and a young girl finds the seeds of escape in the drawings dropped from a second story window by a boy forever locked away. These tales and more explore the melancholia and occasional madness that comes when the mornings are as dark as the nights and the crunch of dead leaves underfoot serve as a reminder of the reckoning of the season.

This is the time of the dares. This is a time to let go. This is Deep Autumn.