The Case of Tilly Mahan

Tilly Mahan collects angel skeletons, and she is happy to show them to anyone who asks. The problem--as religious authorities, newspaper reporters, and local children have discovered--is that Tilly's conception of angels and skeletons differs from most people's.

Her collection includes the following:

a plaster cast of a tire rut, taken from a not-yet-paved road in a stalled housing development

three charred fragments from a lightning-struck white pine

an old-fashioned brass key whose wards do, it...