Honorable Mention—Summer 2021 Supernatural Fiction Award
“That’s when she started digging. At night, under a full moon, so I could see her out there, she would bury the corpses of cats and then dig them up a few weeks later, boiling what was left. The house would smell so bad she’d spend the whole day with the windows open cleaning with vinegar and lemon. I don’t know where she got the idea, but it wasn’t from me. I never asked for bones. She wrote messages on paper, whispering with her eyes closed. She got skinnier with every note she wrote. She’d pour oil over the paper and then sprinkle them with white powder and set the small bowls in neat rows in his closet.”
Read it here.