The Twisted Ones

by T. Kingfisher

I’m a freelance editor. I turn decent books into decently readable books and hopeless books into hopeless books with better grammar.

I don’t think most people can be outdoors in a strange place and not feel a little bit of trepidation. There might have been serial killers. Or bears. I don’t think I’m afraid of bears, but I’d rather not find out for sure.

Bongo weighs maybe sixty-five pounds and I am probably stronger than he is, but I try not to test it in case it turns out I’m wrong and it reverses the power dynamics of our relationship.

Bongo’s barks had gone from “Die, UPS scum!” to “Pet me pet me why aren’t you petting me?!”

you’re reading a book that’s badly remembered, by a man with creeping dementia, written by a dead teenage girl who is clearly imaginative, weird, and probably abused,

And, yeah, the book within a book within a book was as bad as advertised.

It occurred to me that it was a good thing he was a coonhound. A border collie would still be up on the hillside, trying to herd the effigies into the proper formation. Although a border collie might have been smart enough not to go up the hill in the first place, so it was probably a wash.…