Cory Skerry lives in the Northwest U.S. in a spooky old house that he doesn't like to admit is haunted. When he's not peddling (or meddling with) art supplies, he's writing, reading submissions at Tor.com or copy-editing for Shimmer Magazine, and often off exploring with his sweet, goofy pit bulls. He's a graduate of both Viable Paradise and Clarion West, and his work has appeared in Strange Horizons, Fantasy/Lightspeed, and Beneath Ceaseless Skies, among others. For more of his stories, visit http://coryskerry.net/
A traveling mercenary, moonlighting as a bookseller, arrives in a village stalked by a supernatural threat... but the occupants don't want her help, and they refuse to tell her what is stealing their children. This story appeared on the 2012 Locus Recommended Reading List.