Goodreads asked H.M.H. Murray:

What mystery in your own life could be a plot for a book?

H.M.H. Murray Like any kid who read Narnia and a lot of other "portal" fiction, I spent a lot of time investigating attics, abandoned houses, factories, cemeteries, subway tunnels, abandoned quarries, empty offices, and the occasional storm drain. I still remember some of the finds, and still wonder about how they came to be.

The abandoned house around the corner filled with white,-blue eyed cats slowly destroying all the furniture inside.

That box of daguerreotypes and newspaper clippings documenting a lot of local architecture, left out in the trash.

My friend's attic, filled with Victorian tat from their house's previous occupants.

The intact dog skeleton with a collar and leash next to empty shotgun shells.

The time we learned that creepy guy in the neighborhood had killed his girlfriend and stuffed her in trunk.

The graffiti in the attic of our Quaker Meeting House, names written in chalk, and pencil, and pen, and dates from the unimaginable past, like we weren't the first kids to play up there.

All these stories seem obvious, but with all of them, I still wonder--how exactly did these things come to be?

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