The Lost Story

by Meg Shaffer

“My mom’s buried near my house. I walk there every single day. I want to bury Shannon there too. Have a real funeral or something? Even if no one shows up but me, she deserves that.” Emilie already had the tombstone engraving planned—Shannon Katherine Yates. She deserved a better world than this one. “Why is this so important to you? Because if the answer is that you think finding her body will help you deal with your mother’s death…I promise you, you’ll be wasting your time and money.” “I have plenty of money to waste,” she said. “Seriously, I don’t blame you for thinking that. Mom died, and within a week, I’m looking for relatives? And maybe that was true when I started, but…” She took a long breath. “But when that cop got me on the phone, the first thing he said was ‘I need to talk to you about your sister.’ It’s stupid, I know, but there was this split second when I was so happy. I had a sister? Nobody had ever used that word with me before. The first time I felt anything other than completely alone since Mom died. Well, except for Fritz.” “Fritz?” “My pet rat. Named after Stevie Nicks’s first band. You didn’t need to know that. Sorry.” “Look, Emilie—” “Please, please, please don’t say no. Mom left me a lot of money, so I can pay you a lot. And I can help. It’s not like I have a job.” “I wasn’t going to say no. But the forest can be a beautiful resting place,” he said. “And after twenty years, you need to understand there might not be much left of her body to find.” Sh...