The book The Three Musketeers comes in the mail. It is much larger than we expected. Early the next morning there is a strange, fluffy orange cat on the fire escape looking in the window. Its eyes are wide and frightened.

During the week of October 24, 1846, George Holcomb’s turnip harvest was at its height. With his family and others, he pulled turnips on several days, sometimes topping them and sometimes leaving the tops on. He also began trading his turnips for goods and services, including:

The signs out front faced down the highway, lettered on both sides so they could be read from either direction, east or west. WESTERN CURIOS—INDIAN JEWELRY—GOOD GRADE GAS—CLEAN REST ROOMS—ICE WATER—FREE ZOO.

The tracks coming into Galleton wind down the mountain walls that hold the valley in a giant vortex, the town at its center. Once on the valley floor, the skein is lost in a web of swirling bands and innumerable junctions which converge, at last, upon the yard and then the shed

The sepulchre was situated in the communal graveyard of Santa Madre de Jesus in the province of Santander. This graveyard was, on account of its location upon the side

The knocker sounds once. The knocker is of brass, a cast hand, distinctly feminine, grasping a ball which, at rest, leans against a plate bolted to the door. Flipping it up and letting it fall of its own weight fills the house with an explosive crash.

Anny moved through the night, drinking gin. When she turned south, the wind was a wolf. There was something hard under her right foot, and she realized it was the pavement; her shoe had worn through.

Mark Fusco sold his novel when he was twenty-two. “You’re a very fortunate young man,” Bill Winterton proclaimed. They met in the editor’s office, on the sixteenth floor. The walls were lined with photographs, book jackets, and caricatures. “You should be pleased with yourself.”

The widow arrived at LaGuardia on a Sunday, but the rumors about the woman who had rented a big apartment, sight unseen, had taken an earlier flight. We had already reviewed, on many occasions and in hushed tones, in the quiet that comes after long hours of visiting, what little we knew about the widow and her dead husband.

Marie stands by the elevator door, waiting for me. She takes my hat and coat, my handbag, and lays them by the table. She hangs my coat up. She turns to me and says “I have not seen you in a long time.” She emphasizes “a long time.”