Well that explains some of the odd aspects of the novels.

This short story looks at Elma and Nathanial at the end of their lives, but it was written first and refers back to several key moments in their lives. It's now obvious these were used as way markers of some sort and I imagine had I read this first certain scenes would have seemed more poignant than they were without this context.

You could read this and skip the novels or skip this and probably be better off for it, but they almost feels like vaguely related stories from parallel timelines. It's funny how these things work out sometimes.