We Ate the Dark

by Mallory Pearson

People loved to say things like this to her, always had—you look like your mother, you sound like your sister, you remind us of the dead, you’re here and they’re not.

“Go to bed. Misery loves a sleepless mind.”

“The thing about magic is that it is an exchange of disbelief and power.”

Because she would rather hold the problem in her hands than deal with an aftermath that would come to haunt her.

Poppy Loveless. A label for the collection of skin and bones she had become, curled up like a bird in an egg waiting to be cracked open.

“I’m afraid that I’m just a bad person, and this whole mess is happening because deep down, I deserve it.”