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When they were children, she and her sisters buried their baby teeth in the garden behind their house. Her youngest sister believed the flowers that grew over them—all pink and drooping like pouting mouths—burst straight from the enamel.
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When she was a child they lived, Mother, Grandmother, and Girl, all in one house in the woods. Two small rooms, one big bed, three sets of ten toes wiggling under one blanket Grandmother had made. Grandmother taught her the old names for things, the ones her mother had taught her—how to speak to the fox or the stag in a name he would recognize.
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Simon's father was drowned by a sea monster. It first flashed an open-mouthed grin, folding and unfolding its big, pink tongue harmlessly. But then it closed its jaws around the man's body until little more was visible than one leg, which hung almost comically from its mouth. It pulled away from dry land until they were both submerged, father still caught between its little rows of uniform teeth. As it dove, it left behind a trail of blood, uncurling through the water like red smoke.
“Threnody by an Amateur Oceanographer for His Father the Biologist” in Cream City Review (excerpt available via Project Muse)
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I grew up next to a fire-haired girl whose sister was made of paper. You can only imagine what sort of trouble this caused. My own sister and I built castles in our living room, castles of blankets and upright pillows, with the electric flame of a flashlight illuminating them from within. We bent our heads together, her golden curls against my straight, black hair, and we giggled into the night. Of course the fire-haired girl couldn’t do this with her paper sister. If they had bumped foreheads, the girl made of paper would have gone up in flames. It was difficult enough for them to be in the same room together. I don’t think they spoke much.
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In the summer at the lake, a child goes missing. All those who are tall enough link hands, forming a spine that moves slowly through the lake, feet feeling for the body of a child, until the water is over their chins. My friend Ian and I stand on the shore with the other children. We're both wet and covered with goosebumps. If my sister were with us, her eyes would be huge with worry. I watch, but I don't hear much over the sound of my teeth chattering, something I used to think happened only to cartoon characters.