She was the teacher with a passion inside her, always burning hot, making her ferocious. We live in lonely, fateful flux, outnumbered and outgrown. Language is changing, like the earth, like the sea. I can remember this is not how they were I knew them, I knew them! Only six years have passed and yet I mythologize them as if it is six thousand. They crave romance, particularly when autumn sets in and cold nights await them, and so I speak of Alice, and Bethany, and Sarah, and Val, and other dead women who all once had lustrous hair and never a bad word on their plump lips. I listen, retain, then polish and release them over the fire at night, when the others hush and lean forward in their desire to hear of the past.

My name is Nathan, just twenty-three and given to the curation of stories.

There are signs of change, of regeneration, and I saw the first mushrooms in the graveyard on the morning after I ripped up the photograph of my mother’s face and threw the pieces over the cliff, into the fat swallowing folds of the sea. There are signs, I don’t care what William says. Encompassing post-apocalyptic setting, science fiction and horror, this is a story you will never forget. The beautiful and the terrible exist side by side. This is a bold and striking novella to shake up the New Weird and does contain strong imagery and events. For what can man hope to achieve in a world without women? When the past is only grief how long should you hold on to it? What secrets can the forest offer to change it all? William rules the group with youth and strength, but how long can that last? And what about Uncle Ted, who spends so much time out in the woods? Meet Nate, the storyteller, and the new secrets he brings back from the darkness.

History has gone back to its aural roots and the power of words is strong. The story shall be told to preserve the past. The men are waiting to pass into the night. For when the women are all gone the rest of your life is all there is for everyone. Somewhere away from the cities and towns, a group of men and boys gather around the fire each night to listen to their stories in the Valley of the Rocks.

The beauty by aliya whiteley