by Bliss Perry
First published 2021
Dr. Heidegger gathers four aged companions in his study for an unusual experiment. He claims to possess water from the legendary Fountain of Youth and offers to restore their lost decades. The guests eagerly drink the mysterious liquid and watch their wrinkled skin smooth and their gray hair darken. Meanwhile, Ethan Brand returns to his native village after years of searching for the Unpardonable Sin, only to discover he carries it within himself. Wakefield abandons his wife and home on a whim, living anonymously around the corner for twenty years before attempting to return. A young man named Drowne carves a wooden figurehead that seems to breathe with life. These interconnected tales explore how people confront their deepest desires and darkest impulses. Each character faces a moment of choice that reveals their true nature, whether through magical transformation, moral reckoning, or quiet desperation.
Genres: literary-fiction, american-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, fantasy, 19th-century
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: moral-choice, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Native Village
Period: 19th-Century
134 pages · Paperback · Independently published