Progeny

I never asked for a younger brother. The house smelled different after he arrived-like rot tucked into the seam of the sofa. That backpack made my skin crawl: dead rabbits, a squirrel I'd watched get flattened, a kid who could make animals move and men step backward into traffic.

They called Leo weird. I called him dangerous.

Dad called it adoption and healing. Mom called it grace. I called it trouble.

But when my mother found the journal hidden in his bag, everything changed-her discovery d...