He stood outside her building in the heavy rain, his heart breaking at the sight of her dancing in the window. The light inside her apartment flickered like a candle in a storm, washing her silhouette in erratic flashes. She twirled slowly, arms raised, hair trailing behind her in a lazy spiral. To anyone else,…

For centuries, December 25 has been the traditional date of Jesus’ birth. However, historians generally agree that this date is based more on liturgical symbolism than on historical fact. When the surviving threads of ancient evidence come together, Roman administrative records, Jewish cultural practices, astronomical observations, early Christian commentary, and calendar reconstructions, a different window…

They watched as her beauty faded overnight. At first, no one believed it. The morning light was cruel, and everyone looked different under it, they said. But when Elara Quinn stepped out of her townhouse on Hanover Street that dawn in early spring, there was no denying the change. Her once radiant complexion had dulled…

Summer of ’76, I was sixteen and thought the world had finally made room for me. I had a gold ’72 Dodge Charger that gleamed like a brass trumpet in the sun, and an AM/FM radio that pulled in songs the way a fishing line pulls in dinner. Back then, those songs weren’t “classic” anything.…

He shaved his beard off to save her life, and it nearly killed him. That was how the story would go, how people would remember it when they dared speak of him at all, not that many did. Those who had known Elias Varren before that night preferred silence now, or whiskey, or prayer whispered…

It began with an offhand remark, just a passing recollection from John Bowie during a September 1946 tour of Six Mile Canyon. The Nevada Magazine reporter had followed him down the slope east of Virginia City, where the canyon twisted like a scar between the hills. Bowie was pointing out ghosts: the sites of mills,…

Charlie Morton swore he could fix anything with duct tape and patience. That was almost true. He’d mended tractors, toasters, and even the town’s Christmas lights with those two tools, but patience wasn’t what you’d call his strong suit. It was a Tuesday morning in mid-October, and the day started like a cup of weak…

Back before everything got fancy, we made our music the old-fashioned way, by aim­ing a plastic tape-recorder mic at the radio and praying nobody coughed. If you never held your breath through the last ten seconds of a song so you wouldn’t ruin the recording, I’m not sure you’ve truly lived. I can still see…

There’s something about trouble that sneaks up on a man the same way a pothole does, quietly, and right when you thought the road was smooth. It never comes alone, either. It brings along bad timing, poor judgment, and at least one person who says, “Come on, it’ll be fun.” Take Raymond Tucker, for example.…

The elevator doors sighed open like they’d been holding their breath for years. “Seventh floor,” said the attendant, sounding as though he’d rehearsed that line since birth. “New Horizons Biotech — straight ahead.” Martha Lindon smoothed the front of her floral dress, which she’d bought in 2027 and still swore looked “nearly new.” She leaned…