Every once in a while, someone from my former life could come crawling to my porch. They would be penitent, worried, missing me. And after I sank my fangs into their neck, I would send them away again.

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Chekhov left stories, reminding Popeline Magrath that kindness was the raison d’être. Things were not the prize, but Popeline never read anything Chekhov wrote, never got his moralizing finger-wag...

It was a humid day when the elephant came. I was twelve, Latika was thirteen. The mahout helped us settle on the top after my Grandma gave him ten rupees. Sitting on the red velvet howdah, we faced each other.

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Outside of the borders of our town, to the west, there lives a witch, in a ranch by a lake where no one ever goes. The boys watch her, lying on their stomachs behind the bushes, gravel biting their knees, dust clinging to their eyelashes.