D E BU T N O V E L
Twelve Houses with One Revisited
Cornerstone Press/University
of Wisconsin
Forthcoming January 2028
“…And how does she, exactly, spread them? Ashes? She thought this at 2:03am the morning before her flight out of Colorado. At 2:07am, she opened her laptop and Googled “how to spread ashes” and learned it was legal in New York, but required a permit. She learned you say words over the ashes (she figured as much, but had planned nothing). She learned there was something called a water urn a person could order from a company called The Living Urn, but it was unlikely she could get it in time (again, she had planned nothing). She learned that cremated remains aren’t the graceful grey ash of a fireplace, but sticky and possibly with pieces of bone. At 2:17am, she laid back in the Colorado hotel bed and imagined trying to spread she ashes on the lake of her mother’s childhood and dreams. It was her literal deathbed request. Them blowing back would be comedy, her son seeing the tiny sticks of bones on the dank lake shore would be tragedy. It could not happen. She needed this water urn. She opened her laptop again and saw that, lo, they were located in Denver just a few miles from the airport. At 2:37am, Amy called the company to find out what time they opened. The voice recording didn’t say. She laid back and tried to sleep. She could not. Images of bones. Of her son seeing bones. Images of her trying to hire a last minute row boat. Of her struggling to row the row boat. Of her struggling to open the bag. Do you tear the plastic? Were the ashes in plastic? She hadn’t opened the box from Arizona funeral home since it arrived on her door over a year ago. Did she need to bring scissors? A utility knife?
Mom, she said in to the hotel room dark. I’m driving tomorrow. This isn’t OK. I need to sleep. I’ll take care of it. I need to sleep, I’m driving two other people to the airport. It’s for safety.
Amy felt her mother ascended somehow in the dark, up near the old, peeled-paint ceiling. Hovering. A nagging poke. Like the hummingbirds she knew were her mother when they flew so close to her in Los Angeles.
Mom.
Silence.
I need to sleep. Seriously.
Wings. Inexhaustible thrumming. Light speed infinity shapes.”
“…“…All told, there would be three witches; The warning witch, the healing witch, and the telling witch. Each would appear in my life in the right way and at the right time. And each I would recognize, for every child knows a witch. And the witches would recognize me. Go this way. Lean that way. Aim for this horizon, defer that turn. Stand tall, now hunker down. Here is bad weather. Here is bright weather. Come sister, I know a place you can be free… ”
