Note from the Editors
Once upon a time, you find a door.
The door is in a wood, ivy-fringed. Its hinges are cunningly wrought; someone keeps them well-oiled, for the door does not creak as you open it.
Beyond the door is an empty stone hall. In the centre of the stone hall is a round wooden table, heavily hewn, immovable as a poor opinion. In the centre of the table, on a tarnished copper platter, are nine pieces of fruit.
Eat me, says one, and you will know of hunger red as wolfish maw.
Eat me, says another, and you will know of choking feathers, sickness sweet as silk.
Eat me, says a third, and you will know of ghosts.
They begin to clamour at you, wail of hope and death and autumn, snicker and rail nonsense about airy ash and patchwork lovers untimely ripped from the grave. They whimper. They jeer. They bare crooked little teeth.
You reach out your hand, and they grin.
