Summary

In "The Cottage," the first person narrator Gretel and her mother Sarah spend long days in Gretel's home a month after Gretel finds her mother again. Aged and suffering from Alzheimer's, Sarah only remembers her past in bouts, occasionally overwhelmed by fear of what she calls, the Bonak. Sometimes she begins to use the language she and Gretel shared years prior. Though Sarah is resistant, Gretel tries to get her to tell her story, and "the story of the man who was not [her] father and of Marcus, who was, to begin with, Margot" (9).

In "The Hunt," three months prior, Gretel begins her search for Sarah, who she has not seen in 16 years. She lives by herself and works as a lexicographer. Every few months she calls hospitals and morgues regarding her mother. One day a man at a morgue says...