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by Beth Hurst This is an excerpt from the work in progress novel, ‘The Part That Can’t Remember’, which explores fractured memory, toxic relationships, northern identity and the transformative power of female friendship. The Boy remembers rugby locker rooms. Coach barking pep talks, the sound bouncing off the low ceiling, picking chunks off the silver pipe insulation when Coach wasn’t looking. He remembers cold showers, naked and looking at the ground, because looking up mak

By Megan Baffoe First published in Roadrunner Review Ella waded out into the river the night before the wedding. I fetched her in, at perhaps two-o-clock, pale as her nightdress and near-drowned by the rain. She cried like a newborn as I ran the bath and like a widow as she drank her tea. “He’s waiting for me,” she kept saying, “he’s waiting for me.” So I pulled open the curtains. “He can see you in here,” I repeated over and over until she had fallen asleep. “He can see you

By Annabel Bird An extract from a novel, 'Ferryman's Rest' The couple fall, giggling, into the sodden evening. The woman is Anna—that’s instantly clear from the straightness of her golden hair, its enviable thickness, the way it drapes to her shoulders like expensively lined curtains. Even though Nessa is sitting in the bus shelter on the other side of the street, she clenches her fist as if to stop herself from stroking it. The light above the pub door shines on Anna’s crown