“Feeding the Spirits” by Katia D. Ulysse

Everyone knew. My mother never tried to hide who she was . . .

“Desperate (1975)” by Morgan M. Page

“Baby, don’t go,” he says as she gets out of the bed—that same bed they’ve shared a dozen times or more. She slips on the tight mauve dress and slides her feet into her leather pumps. He’s pleading with her not to go, not to leave him here. But she doesn’t listen . . .

“The Vacation” by Dorothy Stone

She knew she was not his first. The concrete room contained evidence of several that had been here before her: photos, locks of hair, single earrings, fingernails . . .

“Rainy Day Duppy Stories #12 & 35” by C.J. Farley

Hurricane Charlie was hurtling down on Jamaica, but instead of cutting their yearly vacation short, Winnie’s parents packed her off to her Grandma’s place in the countryside, a tiny town called Change-Your-Life . . .

“No Man” by Nathaniel Kressen

Bugs fornicate in the still water from the storm. They leave their young to swarm my knotted limbs. I flash my teeth like a horse resisting the needle . . .

“On Being One” by Susan I. Weinstein

He looks at me with woebegone betrayal in his large baby eyes. My tyrannical one-year-old son is teething, recovering from roseola. How could you leave me? say his eyes so expressively. His tiny hands reach out, appealing to me: Pick me up now! . . .

“Nobility” by Michael Grant Zimmer

As usual, I detected the Keeper before he unlocked the gate; a waft of plum brandy and rotting gums announced him through the solid oak . . .

“Maribelle’s Petard” by Carol Mitchell

“Anna.”

Maribelle froze. Maybe she had imagined the word. Maybe it had come in on the ocean breeze that drifted through the curtains covering their open balcony doors . . .