Introduction

The quiet was loud. You know the sensation if you're used to the clamber of a city, or a neighborhood of homes tight and tidy or even not so tight with only a fence -- chain-linked or white shiny plastic. The woods were not exactly neighborhood but there were others perched down the hill or up between the tall trees. Only the snoring broke the morning silence. It was good the old man slept. So much rain, and the list of chores would stack up soon enough. 

The rain had stopped, that's what made it so quiet. Without looking to see for herself, Tantoo sat with the quiet and the stillness to reckon a direction and shook the entangled dreams from her head, checked her body for any lingering aches or complaints and finding nothing too demanding began to conjure a story with teeth. 

That in itself was funny, but fitting, for her teeth were one of the loudest source of complaint lately. How that pain and a fairy tale might lead her and her family out of this mess she had no idea. But, she did have a god mother ... a clown, tall lean and kind enough to slip through the cracks Tantoo too often tripped on. And there was the astrologer and the myth-maker both of them necessary for different reasons.

THE HOPE SHARPER THAN TEETH is a fairy tale in the making. Planting it here to mark her intent, Tantoo gave what words she had to the storyteller and felt for the hopefulness she knew was somewhere deep in her old bones.