Trailer Time

I'm pleased to announce that one of the stories in ST#24, due out at the beginning of August, will be 'The Wife's Lament' by Lynda E. Rucker. It's an intriguing and (I think) moving tale of a young American who moves to England with her husband, only to find herself isolated and confused. Surely the wood she found at the end of her suburban street can't be a figment of her imagination? And what is the significance of the ancient artefact she discovered?

The rain lessened once she found herself under the canopy of trees, and then stopped. If the forest had seemed sickly and diseased earlier, now it was all but dead. Its misshapen trees had gone white and ghostly, thin fingers of leafless branches pale against the storm-wracked sky. The earth reeked of decay. Thick ropy briar fences replaced the vegetation that had once grown there. Only her panting breath stirred the silence. The brooch hurt her hand; she was gripping it too tightly, cutting into her own flesh, but she could not let it go.

'The Wife's Lament' is based on the early English poem of the same name, which is fascinating in its ambiguity.

The Kingston Brooch