After he told me the theme was “dangerous women,” I at first thought of Perfect State, another novella of mine. I had a very rough draft of that done, but hadn’t yet submitted it anywhere for publication. I sent that to George and Gardner, and they felt it wasn’t on theme enough, and asked if I had anything else. I didn’t, not yet, but something had happened recently that had planted a seed in my mind. I had been involved in some genealogy work, and had run across the name of a Puritan woman named Silence.
