 There were a few things that stood out to me about the book. Maybe it was the way it arrived outside our little secondhand store, wrapped in a ribbon, bone dry on the wet pavement. Maybe it was the way its cover and pages were so aged, yellowed, and peeling, but the stories it contained were so new. Or maybe, just maybe. It was something in the stories themselves, some secrets that they seemed to unlock in me and the world around me, as if just by reading them, I was breathing some hidden and terrifying reality into existence. I suppose, in a way I was. Which is why I've chosen to share them with you. Number 1. Teeth Ferries Kelly was five when she lost her first tooth. This meant she was the first in her class and had never heard of anyone losing their teeth before. She'd kept it quiet, nudging it loose in her gum with her tongue on the long drives to and from school. Before finally prizing it free with her stubby fingers, she had never heard of the tooth fairy, or should I say, Teeth Ferries. It wasn't like she was trying to make them upset, but with no knowledge of what she was meant to do and a fear that she'd done something wrong. A fear, may I add, that ran so deep it went through her stomach and through her toes and into the earth beneath her. She decided to hide the tooth. She didn't tell anyone where she'd hidden it. And even I, dear reader, am unsure as to the exact location of her first tooth, or in fact, the location of her subsequent teeth. What I do know is that even when her parents found out, and she learned about the tooth fairy and the money that was offered in exchange for the white pearls of her milk teeth, she kept hiding them. Perhaps she was planting them like seeds, digging holes in the wet mud with her bare hands. Perhaps she was dropping them into ponds and puddles in the woods, watching them slowly sink while holding her breath. Perhaps she was simply swallowing them. She would sometimes sneak out at night, staining her pajama bottoms with mud, and her parents would wake her to find her sheets damp and clumps of soil under her fingernails. This may, of course, have been unrelated entirely. There's a big world out there, after all, and Kelly felt obligated to explore it. Her parents let it all happen. The professionals they consulted said it was only natural and used words like independence and autonomy and said she'd grow out of it. When Kelly lost her last tooth, she hid it as she'd done the others and came downstairs the next morning, plunking herself down at the kitchen table with a gravity unlike someone her age and simply stated, finished. Kelly would forget she'd done any of this by the time she was 16 and wouldn't have cared much if her mother told her. By the time she was 21, it was more than a distant memory. And if she was ever asked about her milk teeth, which was unlikely, she would assume that her parents had thrown them away or sorted them out one way or another. Kelly was now 21 and living in London. She worked for a small marketing firm and was earning enough to keep her head above water. She had friends that she loved, a cat she shared with her flatmates, and a tattoo of a cactus on her thigh. She was happy, but she was aware, keenly aware that she could be happier. She had a boyfriend once when she was 18 for a day and a half until he told her that he was actually in love with her best friend, who was secretly gay and the whole thing had collapsed in on itself like a limp star. She had not had a boyfriend since. One morning after drinking too much cheap wine that cost far too little, cradling her head in her hands like it was going to split open and malving the words pain killers to her friends like it was a foreign language, she decided she wanted a boyfriend again. Her flatmates were excited by the prospect and spent the week in fits of conspiratorial giggles, sharing photos on their phones Kelly wasn't allowed to see of men who were either too short or too weird, or who were known to bring large books along to the dates as if it wasn't obvious that they were desperately trying to compensate for something. But after a week, she had three dates lined up. Date number one, Andrew was nice if a little boring, but he was funny and Kelly found herself laughing more and more as the evening went on. Maybe he was the one, but she didn't like how he kept covering his mouth when he chewed and when he laughed and even when he spoke and it was then that she realized that she couldn't see his teeth. This began to bother her as dinner progressed and towards the end of the main and the second glass of wine, the thought crept up on her, snaking its way up her spine and through the back of her skull. She needed to see his teeth. This thought came to her as if broadcast from somewhere else, but it planted itself right in the center of her mind and refused to leave. And so she talked about her own teeth and expose them and waited for him to do the same. When she finally saw them, she wished that she hadn't and she tasted her dinner a second time at the back of her throat. The potatoes and chicken now wet with bile. His mouth was filled with more teeth than she thought was humanly possible, let alone plausible. His teeth were crammed together like enamel sardines all jostling for space and she realized that there were hundreds of them, not only lining the ridge of his gums, but sprouting from other places inside his mouth like strange mushrooms and that in fact in that moment she couldn't see the back. But it was as if they continued on endlessly into the darkness of his throat, tiny milk teeth, glossy and gleaming. She couldn't speak and sat in silence for the next five minutes until she stood up to leave. I'm sorry, Andrew. This has been lovely, but I have to go. His eyes turned slick, reptilian. Stay. I have to go. Now he stood up and she didn't remember him being so damn tall and she thought it looked as if his arms went down to his knees and he flashed her another smile, almost mockingly and she realized that even if she had a photo for reference, she could never count the teeth in his mouth. Let me walk. She began to feel faint, but the unexplainable terror of his mouth kept her alert. She said loudly enough for tables near them in the restaurant to hear, no. Then that was that. Date number two. Kelly can't sleep. The world seems to tune to static around her. They say she's crazy. There are 32 teeth in the average human mouth, Kelly. If you didn't like him, you can just say that, Kelly. So she goes on the second, blearily sleep-starved. Through the fog, she can see he's charming, handsome. Her mother would like him. She drinks too much wine again, but it helps her cope, helps her fight this rising sense inside her that maybe she's the crazy one. He kisses her outside and she keeps her tongue firmly inside her mouth. She doesn't want to know. They walk home and get to her apartment, and maybe it's the wine or the sense of the inevitable. But she says nothing as she opens the door and enters her apartment wordlessly. He stands outside. Aren't you, uh, aren't you gonna invite me in? She shrugs the universal sign for what do you mean? Invite me in. She shrugs again, raises an eyebrow, gestures to the door with an arm as if to say you're more than welcome. He's getting angrier now. Let me in, Kelly. You need to invite me in. So, and he hisses the next part, invite me in. And still she says nothing, terrified into silence. And he runs his tongue over his front teeth and says to her in the manner a parent might scold a naughty child, we want them back. And she can see his pink tongue all over his teeth, that multitude of tiny teeth that fill his mouth entirely, hundreds upon hundreds of them, and that black throat that extends endlessly backwards. And suddenly she's shaking her head, trembling in fear. And what she thought was a man lets out a screech and his face goes red. And she can hear a sound like tearing wallpaper and nails on the chalkboard as he storms down the corridor. Her flatmates find her in a heap on the floor. They assume exhaustion and too much booze. She does not tell them the truth. Date number three. She turns in and out of sleep over the next few days, speaking in her dreams about strange men and teeth and fairies. She does not know where the fairy part has come from, but it seems important, vital, even. Her flatmates tell her she has to go on this last date or they'll get her sectioned, call the services, have her mentally examined. She hears them talk in strange whispers about her. She's gone mental, lost it, nuts, skit so. And so, with no other choice, and beginning to doubt her own two eyes, she goes on the last date. She doesn't even make it to the restaurant before she trips and falls and he's there. And he laughs and says this is one hell of an introduction. And he can see the huge bags under her eyes and the way her skin has gone so pale, you can see the veins underneath. And so he calls a cab and puts her in it and for a second she thinks she's safe. But then he's beside her, telling the cab driver where to go. How does he know her address? Why hers? And his arm is around her and he's pulling her close and moving towards her neck and she pushes him off and as her hand forces his face back, it moves his lips and she can see that mouth she has grown all too familiar with and one of her fingers flips inside it and she pulls it back as if it's been dipped in acid. She opens the cab door and rolls out onto the road and feels something snap in her arm and her face feels wet with what seems to be blood. And as she runs as fast as she can away, she can hear him screaming from the open door. We want them back. We need them back. To the untrained eye, it might seem like a robbery or a breakup. But ours is not the untrained eye, is it, dear reader? She is assessed medically. No broken ribs, minor bruising, small fracture in her arm. Lucky she didn't do any permanent damage, especially to her head. I think the damage is already done there, Doc. Her right arm is put on a cast and she has prescribed several pills to help her mental state. Which is why, when she proposes one last date, her flatmates are apprehensive. But she says she can see now where it all went wrong before and how she was mistaken about the endless mouths and their teeth that crowd the gums and that this time she will in fact be very good and hopes to get a boyfriend like the rest of you, handsome and charming and funny and who might even help her. And so, her flatmates organize one more date, a real catch, a keeper. And the night before they can hear noises from Kelly's room, noises like someone installing plumbing. Sounds like someone chiseling stone or hitting metal and the occasional wet gurgle or splash of a liquid. They do not ask questions. They don't want to know the answers. Date number four. When she meets him, she's entirely silent to start with. He's heard that she's had a rough time recently, a mental episode, but she's recovering and he's a nice guy, really honest. So he just chats to her. His voice is a little nervous, but warm. He's trying to make her feel safe. She keeps her lips tightly shut. He says his name is Peter and that she should tell him if he's talking too much and that he always does, but it's just because he's nervous, not because he loves the sound of his own voice. It's just one of those things, honest. She does not laugh. She does not smile. She does not look at him much. And when she does, her eyes stay away from his mouth. Until finally, towards the end of their walk, as they reach the cafe they agreed upon, he turns to her and says, all right, look, I know it's not just the nerves. You haven't said anything this whole time. Am I doing anything wrong? Am I talking too much? Is there any way I can help? Anything's maybe he's pushed it too far, been too probing, but in response, she smiles. A smile that spreads, sneaking its way up each of her cheeks behind the greasy strands of hair. A smile so wide, he can see her bloody empty gums, red and swollen and wet. As he takes a step back, he thinks he can hear something coming from her mouth, although it's hard to make out any individual words, whatever could be words, become a mess of wet sounds. Through it all, straining. He thinks she's saying something like, you'll never find them, you'll never find them, over and over. This is what he tells the police officer at least. He says he has no idea what she's talking about and offers a sheepish smile. The officer smiles in return. I will leave it to you. Dear and diligent reader, to guess how many teeth Peter had, to guess the contents of his mouth, I will not say much more on the subject except for the fact that they never found Kelly and that they never found her teeth either. But they do say, if you keep quiet in the dead of night, when you wait for your child to fall asleep to swap their teeth for money, you might just be able to make out a faint gurgling sound and a voice as soft as the breeze, repeating the same four words, you'll never find them. So, there it is, the first story from the book. I'd be happy to share others. I should mention one last thing, however, to keep it to myself would imply I'm hiding something, I suppose, which I'm not. I was reading the back side of a newspaper left on a bus when I found a story, something about a missing woman, a request for information. They gave a brief description of the woman but in bold, as if to draw my eye to it, was her distinguishing feature. First seen in East London, missing all her teeth. I remembered reading the story in the book a few weeks prior to finding the article on the bus, and that's why I found it all so strange. The events described in the article seemed to happen a week or so after I read it in the book, a strange coincidence perhaps, or something else. I'm not too sure.