Dealer’s Choice / by Chase Boisjolie

Rain had fallen in steady sheets for two weeks straight, so the sun peeking out from behind the clouds in a dazzling sunset made for an especially ethereal Friday afternoon. From behind the bar counter, Jaime watched in shadow as the bloom of late autumn light painted the nimbus-quilted sky nectarine colors; just outside, a …

Like You in the Rest / by Chase Boisjolie

Sitting with a nearly empty popcorn bag in one hand, Miguel gazed into a crowd of eager city pigeons. Their heads bobbed incessantly, mulling around in disparate circles. He tossed a handful of popcorn and watched as a flurry of grey-green feathers descended on the scattered kernels. He slapped the butter-grease on his fingers over …

Lives of the Muses / by Amber Gallant

Downstairs, her sister Helen and brother-in-law Richard were talking about her again. “Serena said she could take Emilie out to the Marden exhibition today. The one I recommended to her, you remember? From the Reader. I have a couple of errands to run. You think Serena can manage that, right? Richard laughed. “Sure. They’re perfect …

Weeping Willow / by Chase Boisjolie

On Friday Amy Glaston left the house for a drive. It was the time of day which sat right between rush hours, but when she reached the freeway the onramp was crowded with a three car pile-up and a row of rubberneckers that set her back. For the past nine months on Fridays she had …

Notch by Notch / by Chase Boisjolie

By the time Robby’s parents arrived at the school most of the heavier rain clouds had been pushed to the horizon, encircling the world like the rim of a fishbowl. It was the end of Robby’s first week at the new school and it had rained every day straight since Monday. He sat alone on …

To Their Leaves / by Chase Boisjolie

At three-thirty in the afternoon, the sun had attained such a point in the sky that it was now shining with absolute brutality into Isaac Jacob’s twelfth floor apartment. The mercilessly bright light revealed a room that was, in a manner of speaking, a near perfect reflection of its occupant. Strewn about the wood floor …

The Bitter Oranges of Jacob Breslin / by Amber Gallant

We thought maybe Papa had gotten the idea from a book. For months he spoke of nothing but the wine-hearted solitude of the place, quoting Robinson Jeffers, while I racked my thoughts trying to remember which of my library books I’d left on the kitchen table at home, what he might have riffled through while …

Goose / by Chase Boisjolie

“The trees look funny,” said Laura North, who was struggling to keep up with her mother as they walked downtown. “Why do they look like that?” “I told you, baby. It’s fall. They do that every year. They did it last year, and they’ll do it again next year, too. Now please stop asking me …