Literary, science fictional, slipstream, and fantastic—this medley of stories is grounded in the present day, weaving backward to the life of Saint Francis, and forward to a time when Earth is a memory, and new humans are finding their place among the stars. Wolf's characters grapple with personal integrity and connection with others, with the imperatives to abandon fear and hate and to question cherished beliefs. A Haitian street kid with a mercurial coin, a skid-row waitress with a passion for palaeontology, and aliens inadvertently trapped in sculptures by Henry Moore, journey side by side with a northern Native man searching for a place to bury a dead spaceman, and two teenagers who build an old-style science-fiction machine with a very modern purpose. Wolf's unexpected approach to story telling interlaces humour, compassion, and a compelling affection for human and nonhuman with a fine-spun unorthodoxy in these understated tales of this world and beyond.