Downhill

Kit, a troubled girl, is sent to the exclusive Blackwood boarding school, where she discovers that only four other female students have been admitted to learn the four pillars of knowledge under the ominous wing of the mysterious headmistress Madame Duret.

Five high school students from different walks of life endure a Saturday detention under a power-hungry principal. The disparate group includes rebel John, princess Claire, outcast Allison, brainy Brian and Andrew, the jock. Each has a chance to tell his or her story, making the others see them a little differently - and when the day ends, they question whether school will ever be the same.

At 2:37, someone commits suicide in the school lavatory. The day is told up to that point from the viewpoint of six different students.

A law student takes a job as a night watchman at a morgue and begins to discover clues that implicate him as the suspect in a series of murders.

A posthumous look at the last days of Guenther's life as he, his best friend, and his sister let loose on a four-day binge of alcohol, drugs, and sex.

In Old Vienna in the days prior to The Great War, a beautiful woman, Hannerl, has her choice of two men; the first is a dashing young army officer who can provide blazing romance and little long-time security. The other is an older man, influential in the affairs of Austria, who could provide wealth...and tender devotion. Hannerl thinks about it.

A young woman is assigned to teach school in a secluded valley whose inhabitants appear stern, secretive and anti-pleasure. Following two children who disappear to play in the woods, she finds that this is actually a community of extraterrestrials with mild paranormal powers who are attempting to repress and deny their heritage for fear of arousing prejudice and hatred in their human neighbors. Based on a series of novels by the late Zenna Henderson.

Two families, abolitionist Northerners the Stonemans and Southern landowners the Camerons, intertwine. When Confederate colonel Ben Cameron is captured in battle, nurse Elsie Stoneman petitions for his pardon. In Reconstruction-era South Carolina, Cameron founds the Ku Klux Klan, battling Elsie's congressman father and his African-American protégé, Silas Lynch.

A married farmer falls under the spell of a slatternly woman from the city, who tries to convince him to drown his wife.

In a futuristic city sharply divided between the rich and the poor, the son of the city's mastermind meets a prophet who predicts the coming of a savior to mediate their differences.

Witek runs after a train. Three variations follow on how such a seemingly banal incident could influence the rest of Witek's life.