"Gone to Heaven, Shouting" from Nina Kiriki Hoffman's Permeable Borders

Permeable Borders 

Nina Kiriki Hoffman 

Fairwood Press

Originally appeared in F&SF

With "Key Signature", this makes a lovely pair of musical bookend stories about music.  In this, a wandering magician steps into a grange hall to join a musical group with his fiddle and reads their thought-stream through the music.  But when they finish, the narrator hears another faint song and follows it.  It is the ghost of a girl who's singing the song of the title.  One of the ladies of the group, Alma, helps him reach the girl.  When the lady was a child herself, she met the ghost's fleshly self inside a building marked with a green man.  They'd tried to feed but only unintentionally killed her. The narrator calls out this ghost, part of his "family," who is her actual family, and helps to transition her.

"Here We Come A-Wandering" from Nina Kiriki Hoffman's Permeable Borders

Permeable Borders 

Nina Kiriki Hoffman 

Fairwood Press

Originally appeared in F&SF

Like "Home for Christmas" and "Trees Perpetual of Sleep", this story has the same recurring character, Matt Black, who appeared in her novel, A Stir of Bones. 

Matt Black, a female, sees what she thinks is the dream of plants, from the vines of a wall.  But he steps from the wall.  He is the moss man, who has just healed a cemetery wall that had asked for his help.  Like Matt, he wanders until he finds something that needs.  He takes, drains the weeping from her, but she feels violated.  Does she go with him or avoid him?

As a series, I find myself swept away by the stories.

“Trees Perpetual of Sleep” from Nina Kiriki Hoffman's Permeable Borders

Permeable Borders 

Nina Kiriki Hoffman 

Fairwood Press

Originally appeared in Enchanted Forests

Like "Home for Christmas" and "Here We Come A-Wandering", this story has the same recurring character, Matt Black, who appeared in her novel, A Stir of Bones. 

In a forest, Matt and Terry settle to do some magic.  Matt, who normally doesn't hear trees, but hears this one--an enchanted witch who'd been dueling spells with his sister.  Hoffman plays up the awkwaedness of the boy wizard's nakedness as Matt helps out the boy.  Not as strong as "Here We Come A-Wandering" possibly because it doesn't develop the relationships or the speculation.