The demon rears on its splayed legs and slaps its naked thighs, leering as it talks shit at you with its long, forked tongue. So listen, and listen good:

Kawawa looked down as soon as she saw the man across the corridor. “It’s just a glitch,” she chanted to herself the advisory from earlier. “Just a glitch.”

“I remember the very first time we made soul cakes, Nan,” I say. Nan dons an apron printed with a charm of miniature bees. Her kitchen is a hive of activity and the heart of the home. Always has been.

I was born with a tree branch on one side instead of an arm. The doctor diagnosed it as a kind of parasitic infection previously known only in plants; I was the first ever human carrier of a plant-parasitic disease.

Gayle spent a lot of time in bed letting her weight press into the mattress. The blankets were piled on top of her in a heap of warmth that was never as comforting as she needed it to be.