Mars Hill spiritualist community, founded 1883. It's nothing fancy. Just a faded resort on the rocky Maine Coast, inhabited by aging hippies, their rebellious children--and the elusive, shimmering spirits known as "the Golden Ones." They are the reason Mars Hill exists. Not everyone can see Them, but everyone can feel their healing presence. Even fetching, skeptical, young Moony Rising, who has come to say farewell to everything she ever loved. And to learn a secret more wondrous than love itself. Twelve exceptional stories, including the title novella, by the multiple award-winning author of Waking the Moon , Black Light, and Glimmering prove that Elizabeth Hand is just as adept with short fiction as she is in the novel form.

The title story traces a world-changing summer at a New England artists' colony for young Shadowmoon Starlight Rising, who comes to know life, death, and an unbelievable secret about the strange apparitions that dwell in her community. Other stories include "Snow on Sugar Mountain," which features a young boy who has the power to shapeshift into any form with the help of a Native American artifact; "The Bacchae," in which womankind rules a savage futuristic version of our world; and "The Erl-King," where a fairy tale horrifyingly comes true. Each story includes an afterword by the author.