Marcie wonders if inanimate things have secrets. She watches her dolls in the glow of the nightlight. Merely a word or the curved closing of a spread plastic hand will be horrifying, for she knows this: no one can control anything that can form a fist or speak its name.

April Selley teaches Writing of Fiction and American Literature at Union College in Schenectady, New York. She has published seven works of fiction and over forty poems in literary magazines. Her chapbook In and Out of Eden won the 2001 Permafrost Chapbook Award.