Winter, like all seasons, is a time of transformation. Glittering frost appears on windows overnight. Can you feel the chill in the air?

This issue has several stories that will contribute to your shivers, of delight and dread. Hauntology is a genre of music that combines voices from obsolete recording technology with modern electronics. “Lonesome Road,” by Matt Cheney, is almost a literary version of hauntology, a different kind of ghost story—postmodern, but chilling all the same. Distant voices also play a role in Sunny Moraine’s “The Shapes of Shadows,” a mysterious tale of alien technology. Esoteric knowledge, lust and revenge spill through the pages of Alejandro Omidsalar’s “Abbadon’s First Rule,” a tale of horror and black comedy. And “Bargain Books” asks the question, is invisibility a blessing or a curse for gays? “Blue Moon,” this issue’s poem, shows that mothers don’t always know best. Plus an interview with Hal Duncan.