Lead Story for July issue:

A Compact with a Minor Demon
by Kay Chronister

The Harlowe house did not burn with the rest of the neighborhood. Fire exhaled soot onto the sidewalk out front and licked the dead grass on the front yard, but died ingloriously before the front porch of that spindly Victorian eyesore – except the roof, which had a hole blasted into the middle of it. Strange, I thought, how the local newspaper printed photographs of the neighborhood carnage, yet neglected to show what I thought was certainly the most remarkable part of the whole scene: the house that survived.