The Curiosities: A Collection of Stories

No, thanks. I'm busy being an island of sanity in a sea of utter madness.

The rain washes too many secrets away. It isn't good where they collect.

When you don’t have time to be afraid, I guess it’s easy to be brave.

Trees spit scarlet and orange leaves to the earth, turning the fields to fire.

And thus they built a stage on which to showcase their conjuring—and also to refine it.

No, thanks. I’m busy being an island of sanity in a sea of utter madness,

The rain washes too many secrets away,” he said. “It isn’t good where they collect.

Soon college would be out, I would join the ranks of the martriculated, and the real world would steal me away for one of their own.

During the night she had told me, 'I feel old. I miss being young.' She curled her arms over her chest, looking already like all the dead Papillons I hade seen littering the grass beneath the sycamores on campus. Unlike any of the other Papillons, though, she was in my apartment, curled in my lap. I missed being young too. Only I had thousands of days to go.

Callie glances over her shoulder. She's younger than me, but aggressively put together, with curled hair and heavy lipstick.

have another tangerine as he begins to expound upon how only in the unpolluted air can man truly be free to contemplate the complexities of existence. I

The air smelled better than peach cobbler, all clean and fresh and alive with rain, electricity, pine resin. If

Soon college would be out, I would join the ranks of the matriculated, and the real world would steal me for one of their own.

I'll come back,' she said. 'Do you come back, if you don't go to hell?' 'No,' I said. 'I believe stay dead.' 'Why are you crying?' she asked me.

I went back inside the m-flat. I needed to study. Not for the degree. Screw the degree. I was going to make it rain.

Then, before Rhun charges, I leap from him, running toward the dead. His steps beat after me, and I hold out my hand. Our fingers link. The dead slather gleefully and lick their lips. It is the third night of Samhain, and we run together.

My prince was not the worst, by all I've gathered, but he was bad enough. He was beautiful like stars are beautiful, like angels are suppose to be. Cold, alien, pristine. Being with him was like drinking the most delicate champange all the time, until I didn't care that when he laughed there were teeth all the long way down his throat.

Where's Jude?' I asked. Martin knelt to get something from his bass case, and then turned to me. His voice was strung tight, savage and bitter. 'He wanted me to give this to you.' He held up a silver case, condensation on the outside, and Jude within.

They say she was a monster already.

The Bear son was surrounded. But it did not matter. He cut thorugh them all, laughing.

The Bear son was surrounded. But it did not matter. He cut through them all, laughing.

...and when I pretended to Portia or myself that the dark stuff couldn't touch me, that was a lie.

From her father, Anna-Sophia had inherited a love of burning down houses. Dutch remembered exactly the first words he'd said to her. 'This is somebody's home.' Anna-Sophias face had been puzzled. 'Of course it is.' And then she dropped the burning rag onto the couch.

I have seen him watching you. You and your bare feet and ocean eyes, you have become the island to him, Morgen. He would sacrifice to you, apple-keeper, healer, wind-whisperer.