Bad things didn't happen in Marblehead, Massachusetts. It's the kind of place that seemed to be caught in a daydream of the past—people left their front doors unlocked all night, their toddlers with twelve-year-old babysitters, and they kept ready-to-go casseroles in their freezers in case of such an emergency that required layers of noodles, veggies, and cheese. There was no litter. There was no graffiti. Yelling was reserved for football games or Red Sox quibbles.
Junior year, the extent of my First World problems in my Leave It To Beaver life were the hour it took every morning to achieve the perfect curl to my baby-blonde bob and sneaking cherry Chapstick, since my mom didn't let me wear makeup to school.
"You have the rest of your life to wear lipstick and high heels," she used to tell me when we fought about it. She didn't even let me shave my legs until I made the pom squad and refused to go to school on pep-rally day.
Two minute dance routines, toe-touches, bonfires and Bobby Thornton were pretty much my world. For two years my life had revolved around Bobby Thornton--the Marblehead High dreamboat. Now, our entire relationship was condensed into a box of scraps underneath my bed: photos, love notes, movie ticket stubs, Valentines, a dried corsage. I don't know why I didn't burn the whole lot. It was all somehow too deeply connected to the last year I had with her. The last year I had with my mom. Before she was murdered in Marblehead, Massachusetts.
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The Bone Princess
HorrorWhile running away from their abusive father, seventeen-year-old Sadie and her six-year-old sister Tabitha accidentally slip into a sinister house on a hill. Horrors beyond their wildest imagination lurk behind every corner, but if they want to make...
