Coincidence brings Mare and Nightmare, two words that seem so naturally linked but, in fact, are etymologically unrelated, to this issue's Fiction section. The narrator of Emily Haworth-Booth's Mare reflects on nonmotherhood, care, and the desire to possess that which we care for. The waking horrors of climate and societal collapse are the only nightmares in this novel, and serve as strong, rational reasons not to have a child. At night, the narrator dreams of horses, and these dreams brim with the joy of attentiveness. She begins caring for a horse in her waking life as well: "The first time, she was an answer to a question I had not yet formulated. The question was yet to be written, but the answer was this: she with whom I could become one, who responded to every squeeze of my calves before I had even thought to kick, who did not trudge across the ground but rippled and slipped through the air, a thought too quick for the mind to seize." The 'she' is ambiguous enough to carry our thoughts to the French 'mère', but only as a swirl in the breeze of the present moment that Haworth-Booth so vividly communicates. This novel feels dreamt more than deliberately written, and I mean that in the best possible way. Think of it as a settling version of Samanta Schweblin's unsettling Fever Dream.