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I reached the wagon and hauled myself up to see inside the bed, and then I lifted the tarp

She was dead, and I thought I was about to give ed to keep quiet I alh, I was so stunned

But I didn’t I had to see more of her I was both repelled and fascinated, as if I were caught in a terrible dream

Her name was Susan Madison, and she was so beautiful--had been so beautiful Her face was unht, it looked as if she were a porcelain doll But then I saw her throat It was nearly nonexistent, and I thought instantly that there should be blood, with such a gaping hole It looked almost as if an animal had ripped out her throat And yet the face…

It was so perfect White Eerily white A doll’s face She was a doll, beautiful--and empty

I pulled the tarp farther back And I sahat had been done to her

I did fall fro, afraid that if they knehat I had seen, the sa would happen to me

Not only was her throat a red horror, but she was covered in dirt, as if she had coround I could only think that her face was so perfect and white only because the sergeant had cleaned her up in an attempt to discern her identity But it was more than the filthy condition of the body that was so disturbing She looked…gnawed, as if consuers on one hand, and a chunk of her s had been worked upon as if they were turkey druet myself up And still I never let loose the scream that seemed to echo in my mind, terrified and shrill

I lived in a mortuary I had seen dead bodies before

But never--never--anything like this

I heard the door opening, and ran to hide in the bushes by the side of the house,I was terrified

I couldn’t help feeling that I was in danger of ending up like that poor girl

My father was still co the body to him

"You can make her look beautiful She deserves a proper funeral, and her faeant Lee, you’reher here? Why didn’t you leave her where you found her?" my father protested "Better she had stayed in the dirt, stayed ain? What if they discover our deception?"

"I chose not to leave her because--so No one will question her death Doctor Howard, the old souse, has already signed a death certificate She was struck by a carriage and left by the road Don’t you understand ic accident The work of a coho left a girl dead in the streets, rather than admit he had struck her If the truth were to cohter of an entirely different kind if the populace were to discover that there is a killer in our htest idea of who he is or what sickness drives hiht, or I will see to it that you are run out of this town Get that witch of a housekeeper of yours to ht I irl’s faeant Lee was a powerful ether, I felt ill It was as if they knew things about each other that created a strange bond between the them I waited in silence as they picked up the body, still wrapped in the tarp, and carried it to the back door Still I didn’t move I didn’t dare

I stayed in the bushes

I stayed there for a very long tione by, I slipped back into the house, only to find that she was there Martha Tyler

Martha alore a bandana wrapped around her head as if it were a crown and she some kind of queen One drop of African blood made a man or woman a slave, and Martha could have been a slave But she wasn’t, even though she caht her back there I think she had been a slave, though, that she killed her master and escaped But perhaps I only think that because I hate her The girls in toho giggle and come to her for love potions don’t know her the way I know her They don’t see her when she sits in front of aat her reflection They don’t hear her voice when she speaks tolike the ht

"Ah, little girl, little girl Poor little ugly girl" She ca er to her lips "Shh," she warned irl? You should not be nosy Such bad things can happen to nosy little girls There are panthers out there And bears and alligators and snakes Predators that own the night They love to feed upon little girls, for no o," I pleaded, but I didn’t cry out for my father I kneouldn’t have helped me He had never loved me, because I wasn’t a beautiful child

He would have helped her feed ators and panthers

She released et all that you’ve seen and heard, or else…" She h her teeth and slashed a line across her throat with her finger "Nosy little girls go to feed the creatures in the woods, and in the end, they are consumed by the worms"