No. 12, a previously unpublished selection from Joanna Ruocco's The Boghole and the Beldame, is a pastoral hallucination-more spell than story-that harks back to the waking/walking life of an archetypal dreamer. Afoot in the muck of language itself, Ruocco paints a thicket in which every shimmering growth baffles the landscape. The characters-creatures, figures, names-in The Boghole and the Beldame lean against time, pluck it for quills, wring its veins for blue, and blush black. Ruocco knows language like the tongue knows teeth. Here is a gateway to everywhere.