And Then She Fell: A Novel
A Globe and Mail "Best Book of 2023"; a Most Anticipated Book Pick by Good Morning America, Bustle, CrimeReads, Electric Literature, Debutiful, Ms. Magazine, The Nerd Daily, and Paste

A mind-bending, razor-sharp look at motherhood and mental health that follows a young Indigenous woman who discovers the picture-perfect life she always hoped for may have horrifying consequences


On the surface, Alice is exactly where she thinks she should be: She's just given birth to a beautiful baby girl, Dawn; her charming husband, Steve-a white academic whose area of study is conveniently her own Mohawk culture-is nothing but supportive; and they've moved into a new home in a posh Toronto neighborhood. But Alice could not feel like more of an impostor. She isn't connecting with her daughter, a struggle made even more difficult by the recent loss of her own mother, and every waking moment is spent hiding her despair from Steve and their ever-watchful neighbors, among whom she's the sole Indigenous resident. Even when she does have a minute to herself, her perpetual self-doubt hinders the one vestige of her old life she has left: her goal of writing a modern retelling of the Haudenosaunee creation story.

Then, as if all that wasn't enough, strange things start to happen. She finds herself losing bits of time and hearing voices she can't explain, all while her neighbors' passive-aggressive behavior begins to morph into something far more threatening. Though Steve assures her this is all in her head, Alice cannot fight the feeling that something is very, very wrong, and that in her creation story lies the key to her and Dawn's survival.... She just has to finish it before it's too late.

Told in Alice's raw and darkly funny voice, And Then She Fell is an urgent and unflinching exploration of inherited trauma, womanhood, denial, and false allyship, which speeds to an unpredictable-and surreal-climax.
1142888496
And Then She Fell: A Novel
A Globe and Mail "Best Book of 2023"; a Most Anticipated Book Pick by Good Morning America, Bustle, CrimeReads, Electric Literature, Debutiful, Ms. Magazine, The Nerd Daily, and Paste

A mind-bending, razor-sharp look at motherhood and mental health that follows a young Indigenous woman who discovers the picture-perfect life she always hoped for may have horrifying consequences


On the surface, Alice is exactly where she thinks she should be: She's just given birth to a beautiful baby girl, Dawn; her charming husband, Steve-a white academic whose area of study is conveniently her own Mohawk culture-is nothing but supportive; and they've moved into a new home in a posh Toronto neighborhood. But Alice could not feel like more of an impostor. She isn't connecting with her daughter, a struggle made even more difficult by the recent loss of her own mother, and every waking moment is spent hiding her despair from Steve and their ever-watchful neighbors, among whom she's the sole Indigenous resident. Even when she does have a minute to herself, her perpetual self-doubt hinders the one vestige of her old life she has left: her goal of writing a modern retelling of the Haudenosaunee creation story.

Then, as if all that wasn't enough, strange things start to happen. She finds herself losing bits of time and hearing voices she can't explain, all while her neighbors' passive-aggressive behavior begins to morph into something far more threatening. Though Steve assures her this is all in her head, Alice cannot fight the feeling that something is very, very wrong, and that in her creation story lies the key to her and Dawn's survival.... She just has to finish it before it's too late.

Told in Alice's raw and darkly funny voice, And Then She Fell is an urgent and unflinching exploration of inherited trauma, womanhood, denial, and false allyship, which speeds to an unpredictable-and surreal-climax.
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And Then She Fell: A Novel

And Then She Fell: A Novel

by Alicia Elliott

Narrated by Cheri Maracle, Jenna Clause

Unabridged — 10 hours, 8 minutes

And Then She Fell: A Novel

And Then She Fell: A Novel

by Alicia Elliott

Narrated by Cheri Maracle, Jenna Clause

Unabridged — 10 hours, 8 minutes

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Overview

A Globe and Mail "Best Book of 2023"; a Most Anticipated Book Pick by Good Morning America, Bustle, CrimeReads, Electric Literature, Debutiful, Ms. Magazine, The Nerd Daily, and Paste

A mind-bending, razor-sharp look at motherhood and mental health that follows a young Indigenous woman who discovers the picture-perfect life she always hoped for may have horrifying consequences


On the surface, Alice is exactly where she thinks she should be: She's just given birth to a beautiful baby girl, Dawn; her charming husband, Steve-a white academic whose area of study is conveniently her own Mohawk culture-is nothing but supportive; and they've moved into a new home in a posh Toronto neighborhood. But Alice could not feel like more of an impostor. She isn't connecting with her daughter, a struggle made even more difficult by the recent loss of her own mother, and every waking moment is spent hiding her despair from Steve and their ever-watchful neighbors, among whom she's the sole Indigenous resident. Even when she does have a minute to herself, her perpetual self-doubt hinders the one vestige of her old life she has left: her goal of writing a modern retelling of the Haudenosaunee creation story.

Then, as if all that wasn't enough, strange things start to happen. She finds herself losing bits of time and hearing voices she can't explain, all while her neighbors' passive-aggressive behavior begins to morph into something far more threatening. Though Steve assures her this is all in her head, Alice cannot fight the feeling that something is very, very wrong, and that in her creation story lies the key to her and Dawn's survival.... She just has to finish it before it's too late.

Told in Alice's raw and darkly funny voice, And Then She Fell is an urgent and unflinching exploration of inherited trauma, womanhood, denial, and false allyship, which speeds to an unpredictable-and surreal-climax.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

08/14/2023

Elliott (A Mind Spread Out on the Ground) expertly mines the challenges faced by a Mohawk woman as her world threatens to fall apart in this ambitious offering. New mother Alice has moved from the Six Nations reservation to Toronto with her white husband, Steve, and their newborn, Dawn, but now lives with an “inescapable feeling of hopelessness.” As Alice tries to write a “modern retelling of the Haudenosaunee Creation Story” while surrounded by racist neighbors, she feels disconnected from her baby, processes guilt over her mother’s recent death, and worries she’s just a trophy wife as Steve pursues tenure as an anthropologist studying Mohawk culture (“Everything Indigenous seems to have more value when it’s utilized by white folks”). Meanwhile, a voice first heard in childhood through the Disney movie character Pocahontas has begun communicating with Alice once again, as are trees and insects, and she inadvertently discovers a portal to another world. As the reality Alice is clinging to becomes more unstable, she must interpret the creation story for herself to understand the importance of her own life and those of other Mohawk women. This novel is part time travel and part horror, as full of heart as it is bold. Agent: Stephanie Sinclair, CookeMcDermid. (Sept.)

From the Publisher

"And Then She Fell is a daring, dark exploration of motherhood, mental health and identity.... An investigation into inherited trauma and womanhood, this voice-centered novel packs quite a punch."
—Zibby Owens, Good Morning America

"Haunting and surreal, And Then She Fell had me questioning reality alongside Alice as she grappled with motherhood, being a writer, a wife, and feeling like an outsider in her own life. With its sharp wit and beautiful writing, this book had me flying through the pages."
—Ana Reyes, New York Times bestselling author of The House in the Pines

"And Then She Fell is an incredible and indelible novel. It's full of wonder and surprise, full of life and heart. This book is a gift that breathes life into the reader. Alicia Elliott has given us a knockout—a book so good you can't put it down." 
—Morgan Talty, bestselling author of Night of the Living Rez

"Riveting prose.... And Then She Fell will have readers absorbed within the first few sentences."
—Shondaland

“It is such an impactful book, I had to hold the book and just cry at the end…an excellent, excellent novel.”
—Book Riot

"[A] bitingly hilarious, spine-tingling, genre-blurring fiction debut.... Elliott's ambitious, enthralling portrait of a brilliant young woman beset with racism, postpartum depression, and grief reminds readers that the truth is often multilayered. This provocative blend of drama and speculative fiction is charged with justified anger and overlaid with Indigenous stories and characters. Book clubs should consider this feminist parable a first choice."
—ShelfAwareness (starred), "The Best Books This Week"

"Creepy, thoughtful, and immersive!"
—CrimeReads, "30 Horror Titles to Look Out for in 2023"

"Alicia Elliott’s satirical debut book is awash in trippy black humor."
—Bustle, "The 35 Best New Books of Fall 2023"

"An incredibly moving novel about a young Indigenous mother who is struggling to connect with her newborn daughter. Elliott deftly explores new motherhood and mental health throughout her surreal plot and beautiful prose. A stunner through and through."
—Debutiful, "Can't Miss Debut Books You Should Read This September"

"Alicia Elliott explores Native identity, tradition, womanhood, motherhood and mental health in compelling, mysterious and magical storytelling. Expertly moving from humor to horror and back again, Elliott navigates heavy themes in thoughtful and original prose."
Ms. Magazine

“A tale of compromise, madness, and recuperation.... Alice’s observations, however unreliable they become, suggest above all the significance of cultural erasure and appropriation for Indigenous peoples, the ongoing impact of policies of cultural genocide, and the rest of the country’s routine incomprehension of or indifference to Indigenous suffering.... “[T]he novel’s plot moves along briskly and suspensefully.”
Kirkus

“This first novel from Elliott is an evocative, cerebral study of womanhood, identity, and selfhood wrapped in Haudenosaunee legend.... Often funny, often chilling, And Then She Fell studies an Indigenous woman’s unraveling in a world that she’s ashamed to feel so disconnected from, and Elliott tells her story with assuredness and weight.”
Booklist

“Elliott expertly mines the challenges faced by a Mohawk woman as her world threatens to fall apart in this ambitious offering. . . .This novel is part time travel and part horror, as full of heart as it is bold.”
Publishers Weekly

"And Then She Fell is an unblinking look at the complex and often terrifying journey of new motherhood and what we're told we should want, with moving insights into connecting with our ancestors and our own identity. Alicia Elliott is a powerful storyteller, and this book is both suspenseful and heartfelt, with haunting elements that linger long after the final page is turned."
—Vanessa Lillie, bestselling author of Little Voices and Blood Sisters

"And Then She Fell is shocking, riveting, uncomfortable, gorgeous and visionary.... Elliott's remarkable, genre-blurring, and brilliant writing takes us into a world of metaphor and myth and nature. Her world-building is as menacing and spectacular as that of Jeff VanderMeer and Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Elliott's true gift to the reader is a new perspective on Indigeneity which is both humbling and earth-shattering."
Heather O’Neill, author of When We Lost Our Heads

"And Then She Fell is a stunning, propulsive novel that complexly folds generational love and mental health into a story about relationships: the ones we have with our ancestors, our family and friends, and ourselves.... I’m so happy that a novel like this exists, and I am excited to see the future of writing that this work inspires. And Then She Fell is a triumph of a debut."
Jessica Johns, author of Bad Cree

"I could not put this book down. And Then She Fell is one of the most mesmeric, intoxicatingly original novels I have read in recent years, with a central character I will carry with me for a very long time."
—Hannah Kent, author of Burial Rights

"A towering achievement, stunningly good storytelling."
—Melissa Lucashenko, Miles Franklin Award-winning author of Too Much Lip

"Elliott’s meticulous prose is an agile portal through the narrator’s complex inner life, the tensions, and fractures that surface when the trappings of success hide the weight of intergenerational trauma, racism, sexism, and the unwieldy expectations of motherhood."
—Eden Robinson, internationally bestselling author of Return of the Trickster

“Familiar and ethereal. Brutal and beautiful. And Then She Fell is the fulfilment of the promise of Alicia Elliott's storytelling prowess. . . . What an accomplishment. What a gift.”
—Cherie Dimaline, author of The Marrow Thieves and VenCo

“Alicia Elliott’s thorough and thoughtful examination of motherhood, intergenerational trauma, and modern Indigenous realities is a caring salve for Indigenous readers and an important enlightenment for others. I loved its profound exploration of the spaces we navigate as Indigenous peoples - from the rez to the city and beyond - and I greatly appreciated the depth of humanity with which Elliott was able to portray her rez characters. This novel is a triumph of Indigenous truths and experiences.”
—Waubgeshig Rice, author of Moon of the Crusted Snow and Moon of the Turning Leaves

“This book stunned me…I was not expecting the twists and turns it took to get to the ending but I loved every single word on the pages.”
—The Colorado Sun

NOVEMBER 2023 - AudioFile

Jenna Clause and Cheri Maracle perform this heartrending horror novel by Mohawk author Alicia Elliot. On the outside, Alice appears to have it all. She lives in a beautiful house in the "nice" part of town with her successful white husband and beautiful baby girl. But when Alice begins to have visions of horrible things happening to her baby and hears the trees sharing their memories with her, she realizes that something is horribly wrong. Clause portrays Alice with an ear for dialogue and a strong sense of rhythm. Clause captures all of the anguish and panic Alice experiences. Maracle portrays the perspective of one of Alice's family members who is desperate to help her with her deteriorating mental health. K.D.W. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

2023-07-26
A tale of compromise, madness, and recuperation by a Mohawk writer in Ontario.

Alice, a young Mohawk woman and new mother to a baby girl named Dawn, finds herself living comfortably in Toronto, married to a white man whose academic specialty happens to be her own culture. Unsettling encounters with prying neighbors, whose racism emerges in both subtle and obvious ways, mark the beginning of Alice’s deteriorating mental health. Her salvation, as she understands it, is to retell the Haudenosaunee Creation Story, though an increasing paranoia and apparent psychosis complicate her efforts. This novel seems, in part, like a contemporary, Indigenized retelling of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s classic short story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” with the first-person narration here similarly highlighting not just a woman’s descent into insanity, but the bigotries and toxic power relations that structure society. Alice’s observations, however unreliable they become, suggest above all the significance of cultural erasure and appropriation for Indigenous peoples, the ongoing impact of policies of cultural genocide, and the rest of the country’s routine incomprehension of or indifference to Indigenous suffering. Particularly intriguing is the representation of Alice’s self-doubt as she attempts to modernize a traditional story without betraying it and the people it represents. As she asks herself, in a passage that seems to sum up a conundrum facing many contemporary Indigenous artists: “Is there a definite, observable moment where interpretation becomes bastardization? If there is I’m flirting with it. I mean, I’m writing my people’s Creation Story—the story that lays out our entire worldview as Haudenosaunee—in the voice of a gossipy, irreverent young woman when common sense (and stereotypes) say I should be writing it in the voice of a sage old Indian man.”

A tale of injustice and veiled persecution seen through a fevered imagination.

Product Details

BN ID: 2940178067321
Publisher: Penguin Random House
Publication date: 10/03/2023
Edition description: Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

Chapter 1

The Last Exit Out of Alice

Yes, this is technically called "The Creation Story," but it's not the beginning, so let's get that little misconception out of the way right now. There never was a beginning. There was a before, and before that was another before, and another before before that. I know that's probably confusing to a modern mind like yours. Colonialism and so-called linear time have ruined us. We can't even wrap our heads around our own stories because we've been trained to think in good, straight, Christian lines.

But the world doesn't work like that. It never has.

Anyway, before before, this world was covered in water. A deep ocean that held water creatures like pearls. An endless sky that bore witness to the brilliance of the birds. Now, when I say "sky," some outer space is included in there, too. A lot of outer space, actually. Pretty much anything that can be seen from earth counts as "sky"-but that's not to be confused with Sky World, which is even higher than the sky. It's its own world with its own problems, as you'll see pretty clearly once we get into Sky Woman and her life. Though when you really stop and think about it, Sky World and its problems aren't that different from our world or our problems, so it might as well be just plain old "the World."

Aaaand there I go, getting ahead of myself again. Sorry. Bad storyteller! (Let me ask you a quick question: When I say that-"Bad storyteller!"-do you imagine a white lady with a pursed butthole of a mouth wagging her finger in your face, too? Maybe like a nun? "Bad storyteller!" Wag. "Bad Indian!" Wag wag. "Bad woman bad human bad subhuman bad unreal unholy object bad possession my possession his possession everyone's possession but your own bad bad bad bad badddd!" Wag wag wag wag wag. No? Just me? All right, I'll remember that for later. See? Not that bad a storyteller.)

So. Basically. The order of things went, from top down:

Sky World

11

Sky

11

Ocean

And at the very, very bottom of the ocean, the animals heard, there was something called clay. They weren't sure, mind you, but they most certainly suspected. Heard from a friend's sister's boyfriend's cousin, and they all but confirmed it. The animals have always been a gossipy bunch.

No one had ever seen this "clay" or felt this "clay" or taken grainy, possibly doctored pictures of this "clay" to pass around and praise or debunk, however-so most of the animals laughed the whole thing off. Everyone knew there was only sea and sky. Sink or swim.

Or fly, I guess.

"Somebody's hungry . . ."

I jump in my seat, nearly choking on a gasp. My hand automatically flies to my chest, as if to hold in my thundering heart, and I whip around.

Steve stands there, Dawn wriggling uneasily in his arms.

"Oh. It's you," I say, exhaling with a little laugh.

"Didn't mean to scare you."

"It's okay. I was . . . in the zone, I guess," I say, turning back to look at the computer screen, at the pitiful number of words I've managed to squeeze out. I've been writing and rewriting and erasing and editing this opening section for weeks and nothing seems right. I want to get it perfect, to capture the way my dad used to tell our traditional stories when I was a kid. It's only now, as I labor over even the smallest word, wondering if it's the right kindling to stoke the fire of the reader's mind, that I understand how much talent and effort it took him to make our stories seem so urgent and relevant, even hundreds, thousands of years later. I doubt I'll ever come close to the bar he set. I mindlessly tap the space bar on my laptop, as if that will add anything substantial to the story.

I have no idea how the hell Steve and Dawn snuck up on me. For one thing, I can usually smell his cologne from ten feet away. His mother, Joan, bought it for him. She thinks because she spent more than five hundred dollars on it and its heavy bottle is bedazzled with enough Swarovski crystals to make a drag queen feel faint, that it must smell good. It doesn't. It smells like an unwashed-for-a-couple-days-patchouli-loving douchebag. Like what I imagine Jared Leto smells like. Plus, I'm pretty sure I'm allergic to it because my nose starts to run whenever he sprays, delays, and walks away. ("Learned that one from Queer Eye," he told me once, smiling with characteristic earnestness.)

I know he's wearing it as a tribute to his doting mother, an act of olfactory love, and that if I even suggest I don't like it he'll stop immediately. But I also know Joan has been passive-aggressively planting the idea that I unfairly hate her ever since she and I first met, seeds of doubt that were no doubt fertilized and watered by my insistence on having a wedding that centered my rez family and friends. Even saying that I hate the cologne she bought him could subconsciously confirm these suspicions. They're accurate-I absolutely hate her. But I don't want him to know that, so I suffer both the smell and the snot, smiling like a good little wife.

The other thing: I definitely should have heard Dawn. She's not quite crying but making an agitated sort of mewling sound I'm all too familiar with. It usually signals that she's about to start another hours-long crying spree. I'm so attuned to that sound I can already feel my breasts leaking. They clearly heard her long before I did. But, if I feed her fast enough, before she starts really getting her little lungs going, maybe we'll avoid a fit this time.

I turn back to the two of them and hold my hands out for Dawn. "Give her here."

Steve plops her into my arms. I pull up my shirt, pull down the flap on my breastfeeding bra, and pray that Dawn will latch on this time. Miraculously, she does, her little cheeks moving in and out like a goldfish. Her face fades from burgundy to a calm light brown as I rub her velvet cheek, soft the way only brand-new baby'skin is. Relief floods my muscles, and I close my eyes, letting this small victory loosen my too-tense body. We sit like this for some time, our shared exhaustion making us unlikely allies.

"I like how the animals are all conspiracy theorists."

Shit. He's talking about my writing. I left it up. Stupid mistake. I immediately open my eyes, see Steve leaning over me, and cringe. Not because I don't want him near me. I do. There's this amazing warmth he emits, which makes any room he's in feel like the temperature has risen a few degrees from his mere presence, the exact opposite of the way demons and ghosts are said to make rooms colder.

No, I cringe because his seeing my writing at this stage feels too revealing. Like a stranger walking in on me half naked in a fitting room. Even his praise prickles. The writing is too fresh, too close, my meandering through it too sensitive for scrutiny.

"Thanks, babe. That's sweet of you to say. But it's not good. And it's definitely not ready to be read yet."

I slam my laptop shut, and he stands up quick.

"Oh. Sorry. Didn't realize you were keeping it secret."

Steve moves away from me, hurt, and my once warm neck becomes cold again. I feel a pang of shame-so deep and sharp and fleeting I can't possibly follow it back to its roots-quickly swallowed up by regret. I'm doing it again. Pushing Steve away. He's excited about my writing. He wants to encourage me, he wants me to succeed, he's told me as much, said we need to set goals for ourselves as individuals and as a family so we maintain our autonomy. He doesn't deserve this.

"It's not that it's a secret. It's just . . . ," I start, searching for a way to invite him back in again. "I'm worried about the tone," I finally say, looking up at him through lowered eyelashes, hoping my face is soft and feminine instead of hard and masculine. It takes conscious effort for me to do that-look helpless, vulnerable, innocent-in a way I'm sure would come naturally to so many white women.

"Maybe it's too flippant?" I add for emphasis.

Steve smiles very slightly, almost imperceptibly. "I like the tone," he says, his voice tentative. "It's ballsy," he continues. "Totally different from the old sage Indian everyone thinks of whenever anybody says the words 'creation story.'"

Not everyone thinks of that, I want to say. White people think of that.

I look down at Dawn, trying to see parts of my family members' faces in her tiny features, but I fail. She's asleep now. Fighting naps all day has finally caught up with her. I pull myself out of her mouth and fix my bra and shirt.

"I don't know if Ma would like it," I confess quietly. "Or Dad."

"What are you talking about? They'd both love it," Steve says as he bends down and kisses my hairline. He gently pulls Dawn away from me and sets her into her car seat in the corner of the office. I'm not sure when I put it there.

I get up, move over to the window. Glance out through the blinds to see the driveway and cream siding of our neighbor's house. People don't exactly live here for the views, I have to remind myself.

"Anyway, don't worry about anyone else's opinion. Only Shonkwaia'tison can judge you," he says, grinning with obvious pride.

I pause.

Shonkwaia'tison.

Today was Steve's first language class, I remember. He was there, in some yellow-tinged classroom reading handouts and forcing his hard English tongue to make soft Mohawk sounds, while I was here, pretending I know how to write Mohawk stories in English words. It's difficult not to be jealous of him, embarrassed of myself. He slid the Mohawk in so seamlessly, so confidently. The same way he approaches everything, including me, as he slips behind me once more, his hot hands skating over my hips, my abdomen.

And suddenly I'm in the upper corner of the room, looking down at Steve and me, as the empty shell of myself leans into the delicious heat of his body. I try not to panic. This isn't exactly new: my consciousness peeling away from the inconvenient reality of my body and floating into the strange, almost liquid-feeling air nearby. But I'm more determined now than ever before: I can't let old demons ruin my new life. They're trying, the demons. Pushing against the mental membrane I've been fortifying since I was a teenager.


Just last week I was making dinner, standing in the kitchen in the sleek little dress I’d grabbed from the closet and shimmied into so Steve would see how well I was handling everything. I’d thrown my hair into an updo I learned from Instagram but decided against makeup. That seemed too try-hard. I had just placed some hand-breaded chicken cutlets into the oven when my eyes caught on the terra-cotta-colored walls. I started thinking about how much I hated them. Steve had chosen the paint. Steve had chosen everything. He’d asked for my input when we first moved in, but I’d shrugged. I couldn’t consider the world outside my grief. Ma was newly dead, and I was spending most of my time back at my childhood home on the rez, preparing for her funeral. I’d passed a few sleepless nights in her bed, her sheets pressed to my nose as I breathed in her scent of menthol cigarettes and Chanel N5, sobbing. In the mornings, I’d wandered through the trailer, covering the mirrors and reluctantly bagging her belongings to give away after the burial. I’d originally wanted a house with a granny suite so I could look after Ma, make sure she wasn’t pushing herself too hard. She’d been struggling with the long-term effects of an injury then, and I wasn’t sure how well she’d adjust to living without me for the first time. Once I found out Joan was paying for the house, though, I didn’t feel comfortable mentioning it, or any of my preferences. She made it clear the only opinion that mattered was her own. I couldn’t help but focus on this fact after Ma died-she could have been living with us, we could have saved her-letting it curdle into resentment for both my mother-in-law and the house she’d gifted us. Devoting any thought to decorating it in the weeks and months that followed seemed impossible, even cruel.

And now, thanks to Steve, our entire house looks like it was ripped from an IKEA catalog-all clean lines and no character. White cupboards and chrome pendant lamps and black cube couches. I'm scared to move inside it, scared to dirty it, to disrupt its sanitary perfection. My stylish yet affordable Swedish-designed prison. My first place off the rez, and yet not mine at all.

I don't belong here. Even though it was just a thought, it boomed loud in my mind as I watched the water in the pasta pot come to a boil. I trembled at the truth of it. I don't belong anywhere. Not anymore.

Then another voice, not my own: It's all burning.

It startled me, this voice, and for a moment I was so scared I couldn't move. I saw it first: dark smoke reaching from the oven door and up toward the ceiling like an angry, vengeful hand. Holy shit, I thought. Something really is on fire. As soon as the thought popped in my head, the sound of the fire alarm echoed in my ears, then the sound of Dawn's confused yelps started in the living room like high-pitched harmonies. I knew logically those sounds must have been going for a while by that time, but for some reason I hadn't heard them.

It was like my body suddenly went on autopilot. I grabbed oven mitts, opened the oven door, snatched the baking sheet, slammed the door shut, and dropped the baking sheet into the sink with a clatter. I turned on the taps, anxiety sharp in my chest as I watched the steady stream of water rush over the charred remains. As I ran to grab a broom so I could turn off the smoke alarm with the end of its handle, it occurred to me that Steve was due back any minute. He couldn't see this. He couldn't see any of it.

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