“Mary,” I said, “what if you just got rid of the ants? You don’t have to wash it. Just get all the ants off.”

In Mary’s Hand is Ants, Steff Sirois delivers a macabre collection of short prose and hybrid works that grapples with meaning making and meaninglessness. Each piece explores hopelessness and fear through absurd performances that attempt to answer unanswerable questions or surrender to the absence of answers entirely.

From a girl sewing on her own finger to a ghost baby’s manipulations, Sirois crafts scenes as chilling as they are surreal. In the unforgettable title story, a school violin performance for Shania Twain becomes a quiet eulogy for a girl eaten alive by ants. The horror lives in silence, guilt, and memory.