From eastern Europe to the Pacific Northwest, this collection explores the complicated and often contradictory dreams and desires of women of all ages and the role that memory plays throughout our lives.

A daughter returns to the island where her mother disappeared, searching the dark waters for a creature that promises oblivion just beyond the shore. In a war-torn village nestled in the Tatra Mountains, a mother's strength falters during labor and the mountains answer her cries for help. The Old West town of Carbondale is known for two things: its prostitutes and the herd of Painted Ponies whose hooves dance across the desert floor under the light of the moon. A young girl summons a demon to help her escape the trailer park where she lives in neglect. Walnuts harvested from a churchyard tree and baked into bread summon memories-and nightmares-of lost loved ones. A sapling travels along the Oregon Trail with a young bride, witnessing her happiness and heartbreak as the journey brings her farther from home and closer to her true strength. An Alzheimer's treatment brings back memories of a woman's past and future lives. Readers will find themselves sinking deeply into the sumptuous, magical realism of Beechwood's stories, only to surface again at the last page, wondering "Was it all a dream?"