Long into the night, the sisters' banter echoed in the crenellations of the tin walls, echoed in the spindles of Beatrice's rocking chair, echoed in bare footfalls of Bridget's pacing, echoed in the swings from excitement to melancholy in Bernice's timbre. As they bickered and laughed and told tales of the townsfolk...
Fairy tale tropes for a midwestern gothic are tantalizingly familiar, and when I think of home I see them all, their archetypes and allegories, characters we connect with in a malaise not beyond a garden wall, but right here, with us— in a place of enervated belief and heuristic magic.