Series: If you leave that stray cat in your house, Martha, you'll be smelling her dead owner till spring, the deputy told me on the porch.

Part 1 Fourteen days after my eccentric neighbor Clara Sallow froze to death in her unheated cabin, her orange tomcat Barnaby refused to leave my [more…]

The air bit harder than usual, even for February in Maine. I was halfway through replacing the cracked pane in my kitchen window when a [more…]

The sun, low and weak, was already starting to dip behind the skeletal trees. I walked back towards my cabin, the surveyor’s words echoing in [more…]

My teeth chattered even after a night huddled by the struggling woodstove. Barnaby had burrowed under my thickest blanket, his purr a small, vibrating comfort. [more…]

The bell above the door stopped jingling, leaving only the quiet hum of the refrigerated cases and the crackle of the woodstove in the corner. [more…]

The walk back to my cabin was a blur of numb feet and a burning rage. Eldon’s words, “You’re just a recluse, Martha,” scraped at [more…]

I clutched the wooden shim in my pocket, the sharp edges digging into my thigh. The evidence of Julian’s true depravity burned there, a constant [more…]

Forty-eight hours. Julian’s words were a countdown, echoing in the biting silence of my cabin. My hands were already clumsy with cold, my fingers stiff, [more…]

The throbbing in my left foot had turned into a searing pain, a deep ache that seemed to radiate through my entire leg. I’d wrapped [more…]

The cold in the root cellar was a living thing, an invisible, insidious predator. Six hours crawled by in the oppressive darkness. My entire body [more…]