Our Lady of the Clay
ShortStory 5,100 words Recommended by 3 award/anthology sources
"No signs protect the backyards in this part of town from the Marl Pits Forest. There’s no treeline either. Of course there isn’t. But even in the dark, you can’t really miss where the forest starts—not if you’ve lived a childhood in the wilderness here like Ansel has. He knows it by the way the ground softens underfoot..."
Content warnings 3
child-abusedeath-of-a-loved-oneviolence
Quasar links out; the story lives on Apex, where the author gets the click.