This is The Writer's Voice, new fiction from The New Yorker.

I'm Deborah Treesman, fiction editor at The New Yorker.

On this episode of The Writer's Voice, we'll hear Lauren Groff read her story The Wind

from the February 1st, 2021 issue of the magazine.

Groff has published three novels, including Arcadia in 2012, and Fates and Furies in 2015.

Her second story collection, Florida, won the Story Prize in 2018.

Now here's Lauren Groff.

The wind.

Pretend, the mother had said when she crept to her daughter's room in the night,

that tomorrow is just an ordinary day.

So the daughter had risen as usual and washed and made toast and warm milk for her brothers,

and while they were eating, she emptied their school bags into the toy chest and filled them with clothes, a tooth brush, one book for comfort. The children moved silently through the black

morning, put on their shoes outside on the porch. The dog thumped his tail against the doghouse

in the cold yard, but was old and did not get up. The children's breath hovered low and

white as they walked down to the bus stop, a strange

presence trailing them in the road.

When they stopped by the mailbox, the younger brother said in a very small voice, is she dead?

The older boy hissed, shut up, you'll wake him.

And all three looked at the house hunched up on the hill in the chilly dark.

The green siding half installed last summer, the broken front window covered with cardboard.

The sister touched the little one's head and said, whispering, no, no, don't worry, she's alive.

I heard her go out to feed the sheep, and then she left for work.

...