Mary Ruth had been alive for one hundred and two years, and she knew things she shouldn’t know. She knew where the fairy rings of mushrooms sprouted in the woods. She knew that twenty years ago, Mr. Wilkins the shopkeep had been operating a still on his land. She knew why Ms. Perry, the beautiful young war widow, had died at the bottom of a cliff, and why that handsome new Reverend Taylor had run off.

She also knew how to keep her mouth shut. She knew the value of silence, and the value of listening. And sometime in her...

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If your parents are going to name you after a song, there are a few things they should think about.

For a start, it needs to be a good song. Actually, no, it needs to be an actual name. Nobody wants a kid called "You know what they do to guys like us in prison."

But it still needs to be a good song. A really good one. Not some one-hit-wonder.

And it should be subtle. I mean, "Penny Lane" - that's obvious. "Layla"? Not so much.

Maybe I'll change my name to Layla, when the forms come through. Or...

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His hand skimmed lightly over the cool metal bumps. His brow furrowed as he struggled to remember the meaning of the pattern, feeling the warmth of his girlfriend pressing close to his left.

"D-down?" he asked softly, biting his lip as his fingers lingered, heating the Braille with his own touch. Braille. Just another sign, along with the sudden paranoia for his safety, that he was no longer the young man he'd been before the accident. Just another sign he was no longer going to be independent, not really.

Just another milestone.

"Yeah," Jessica replied even more quietly, her voice...

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My four-year-old son was out of control. He tried to climb EVERYTHING, he made crazy yelling noises all the time, he had about a ten-word vocabulary, and he slipped out of his room every night to sleep with his pet jungle cats.

And it was all his grandpa's fault.

I should have seen it coming the day my son was born. I held him in my arms, showed him to my father-in-law, and said, "Hey, Dad, ain'tcha proud?" And he just twinkled his eyes at me, and ran his hand through his dreadlocks, and grunted bemusedly to himself.

I should...

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The alien craft exploded invisible to the human eye. The inhabitants had exited over an hour ago, running amazingly fast past the animals lying lazily on the sun scorched land who barely gave them a glance, such was their speed.

Marsha's mom said a second rosary just before going to bed after the long and happy day that was Marsha's wedding. She had never believed that her plain yet loving daughter could have made such a good match. Tom was not only clever, strong and good looking but he was such a homely man, loved helping with the farm, crops...

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I stand on the fine sand, gazing out to sea. We stood here before, didn't we? You and I. Younger, then. Innocent perhaps. Lovers learning about each other in those early days.

The time we spent on this beach was perfect. Like an advert on TV for far flung luxurious holidays. Our own private paradise. We didn't want it to end, did we?

A man walks past. Dressed in green trunks, he glances at me. I signal to him and buy. He's feeling lucky now. Selling watermelon and coconut is not easy at this time of year. I feast on...

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"But I like green."

"You would. Green is a very you colour." She waved her hand, apparently indicating his shirt. "You look good in green."

He raised his eyebrows, surprised. "Do I?"

She ignored it, ignored her cheeks going pink - there was no point to this line of conversation, she was not going to think about it.

Except that he did look good in green, very good. Something about dark hair and dark green and those eyes -

"I just don't think green is a good colour for a rug. I don't think it'll go in the living room....

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Hello city, hello Amy's boyfriend way down there. Hello penny. Let's see if it's so, what I remember from 4th grade about what happens when you drop a penny off the Empire State. On this street we walked and I wanted to yell at people who cat called her and to ask them if they had mother's and shame them. Down by the sudsy Hudson River we laid out and looked at the buildings and talked about Kenya, about the merits of going away and trying to talk ourselves into a compulsion to stay. On that bench she cried at...

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We made a little church of our own when we promised to marry. You asked me when I barely understood how to love you, and I'd been innocent so long that I think the moment you told me you loved me you became ever more desperate to snap me up. Three days after the initial declaration came the proposal. I ran away from you and hid.

You're a terrible boy. Everyone says so. I'd heard the talk since the beginning of time and I'd seen the queue of sobbing girls you left behind you. And yet.... you told me loved...

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Until now, she'd never thought of herself as pretty. After all, her parents had named her Agnes. Agnes. That was the name of some fat, frumpy girl. But she stood here at the mirror, the bell had long since rung and students had settled themselves in desks. The comb in her bag would have to do. Maybe something from the haze of hairspray left behind by the other girls would help set the ridiculously high bangs she had crafted for herself.

She threw the comb in her bag and headed out into the hall. It was empty as expected. Agnes...

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