Before You Begin

Before you begin.

Joel Townsley Rogers's "Hark! The Rattle!" begins in a New York roof garden and lets one small sound split the night open.

This LitLab miniature starts at the story heading in the March 1923 issue of Weird Tales and stops before "The Basket." Its plates follow the story's repeated warning: finger taps, stage rhythm, marsh grass, tail-bells and the sentence that will not stay buried.

The edition keeps the violence restrained. Dread belongs to rhythm, memory, heat, desire and the instant before recognition.