I made a thing, and it’s available in a few different formats.
[Read more…]Emily’s Grave (a story)
Part 12 of 12
The clinic had set Emma Lee up for a parking lot visit, so they sat in Mayumi’s car, heads nodding to one of her tamer hip-hop playlists. They kept the engine running, air conditioner on high to counteract the heat from the open windows. Emma Lee tried to keep her face turned away. She really didn’t want Mayumi to catch it, whatever it was.
[Read more…]Emily’s Grave (a story)
Part 11 of 12
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The fever struck the night before her birthday. She went to bed early, skipping her evening walk, and wrapped herself in her sheets. She managed to sleep, but fitfully, waking often, simultaneously shivering and sweating, mouth parched.
[Read more…]Emily’s Grave (a story)
Part 10 of 12
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By the end of summer, Emma Lee had settled into her life quite comfortably. She’d turned eighteen, so she’d been able to trade her under-the-table and unpredictable income for an actual job within walking distance of home; her morning and evening walks across the cemetery became part of her “commute.”
[Read more…]Emily’s Grave (a story)
Part 9 of 12
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That night, just as she’d closed her book and blown out the candles, she saw movement out her window. For a moment, she thought she was seeing that dancing light again, and felt bad that the ghost hunters weren’t there to see it. She soon realized, though, that she was seeing two flashlights, close together, darting back and forth across the cemetery.
[Read more…]Emily’s Grave (a story)
Part 8 of 12
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Emma Lee met her first ghost hunters toward the end of that summer.
[Read more…]Emily’s Grave (a story)
Part 7 of 12
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Emma Lee hadn’t realized that she was superstitious. Yet for days after discovering Emily’s grave, she felt a dull dread that made her feel somehow hollow, like the aftermath of an adrenaline rush. A headache lurked behind her eyes, unnoticeable most of the time, but always there when she’d sit down to read, or lie down to rest. Her mouth was often dry. Her hands sometimes trembled. She had trouble focusing on her books, so she’d switched to lighter fiction: YA, humor—even romance, for heaven’s sake.
[Read more…]Emily’s Grave (a story)
Part 6 of 12
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Emma Lee worked her way down a line of flat grave markers, bronze or granite or both laid flush with the ground. The day was wondrous, the bright sun tempered by a cool breeze, the air full of the smell of freshly cut grass.
[Read more…]Emily’s Grave (a story)
Part 5 of 12
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Emma Lee managed to get herself untangled from the sheets and out of the bed without disturbing May.
[Read more…]Emily’s Grave (a story)
Part 4 of 12
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The graduation ceremony—as tedious as it was significant, Emma Lee supposed—was held on the football field under a cloudless, mid-morning sky. It ended, a murmuration of soaring mortarboards, a good hour before noon. May had parked her old Civic a few blocks from the high school because, she said, she wanted to be able to get away quickly. But, as Emma Lee predicted, May had to hug pretty much everyone before they left. By the time they got away, the parking lot and the streets were basically deserted.
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