Short Story Sunday: "Haunting Olivia" by Karen Russell

"Haunting Olivia" is just the second story I've read from Karen Russell's book St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves ,but Ms. Russell may already be my new favorite writer. The first story featured two sisters so naturally this one features two brothers. Left alone with their grandmother for the summer by their parents who are still grieving the loss of the boys's younger sister, Wallow and Timothy find an old snorkeling mask while scavenging through a floating junkyard of old boats. The mask is pink, made for a girl, and seems like a message from their sister who was swept out to sea never to be found two years prior.

Wallow, the older of the two, makes Timothy try out the mask which turns out to be magic. Once underwater the mask makes it possible to see the ghosts there. Timothy and Wallow use them to discover thousands of ghost fish, some dating back to prehistoric times. Soon Wallow comes up with a scheme to use the mask to find their sister's ghost. Before Olivia died, she drew many imaginary maps that Wallow kept. When one of them, a map of what Olivia called the Glowworm Grotto, turns out to match a secret spot their grandmother recognizes, the two boys begin a systematic search of the nearby coast until they find the grotto. Olivia's ghost both is and isn't there in an ending that certainly worked its magic on me making this one a story I can highly recommend.

I'm reading the stories in St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves in regular rotation with all of the other short story collections I keep on a high shelf out of Dakota's reach. It may take a couple of years to get through them all. I'm looking forward to the next one.