Excerpt from The Hill by Harriet Clark, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

My mother never asked about my time spent waiting for her. If she had, I could have told her that the mute nun pulled from the ends of her sleeves one thread after another, as if perpetually mid magic trick, and that this was one way to pass the time. Another way to pass the time was to do what the deaf nun did, which was nothing. And then there was our nun at the door, whose days were filled with boisterous accusation and reprieve. Her job was to stop children entering the room and make us sign our mother's name in a book so old and thick it could have been the very Book of Judgment. Poor positioning for a nearsighted nun. At a moment when no one had entered or exited, she got wind of something and said with surprising stringency, "Come back here, you!" Then, upset spent, peace settled over her as visibly as music and she said to no one, "All right then, you can go."

Twenty minutes, thirty minutes, an hour, two hours. When the mute nun grew concerned that the assembled children had been made to wait too long, she showed us the pennies sewn into her skirt hem. The pleasure this provided was minimal—Sister twisted the fabric toward us, the veins of her hands so green and bulging I could see her heart beat through her skin—and to conclude this bout of entertainment, I folded my arms on the craft table and pretended to fall asleep.

On the other side of the inmate door were those parts of the hill I never saw. Each time the door opened to let a woman enter, a small current of air swept the considerable distance down Visiting's long aisle into the Center. I felt it and knew my mother was close. I thought I knew. Those mornings of current after current and no arrival may well have been my dreams. Eventually hands came down on me that were my mother's hands—shaking me, "Wake up, Suzanna, wake up"—and I awoke as if from a very deep sleep. As if I didn't know where I was or what was happening. My mother, beside me, looked thrilled. She wanted to be the one to wake me, to welcome me back to life. This was the distance we acknowledged crossing each time we returned to each other—nothing more extraordinary than anyone seeing anyone after sleep has held them apart.

Crouched beside me, taking me in her arms, my mother pressed my head to her chest so hard I could not breathe or hear and had to re-wake from her arms, stretch my own arms, and stand up.

"You made it," she said, kneeling, smiling. And I, standing over her, looked past the nuns and craft supplies, past the vending machines and change machine, the photo corner and far table where my grandfather pretended his own extended sleep—"You made it," my mother beamed—and proud but modest, I dipped my chin to give a humble nod.

Excerpted from The Hill by Harriet Clark. Copyright © 2026 by Harriet Clark. Excerpted by permission of Farrar, Straus & Giroux. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.