From poignant and dangerous obsessions with the iconic, to direct, often puzzled, conversations with ghosts, the characters in this short story collection strive to make contact with the impossible. A girl becomes obsessed with a figure she only sees through a Camera Obscura; an angry man strikes up a friendship with a sixth-century saint; and a revenant mother by a mountain lake tries to explain herself to a grieving friend. With a keen sensitivity for language and storytelling, this book draws on the dark side of folklore and superstition as it explores the themes of "collecting" and recovering from the past.