My name is Katie Wiggins. You're listening to Nearly Departed.

Chapter 1, The Letters Her hands fell on a spine that felt different than the others.

After rows of paperbacks creased and creaked beyond their limits and dusty old fabric-bound hard

covers with their titles chipped away through the decades, this row was squeezed tight,

with thick, uniform books, all the same cornflower shade of blue, with no identifying words

on their spines. She slid one of the tomes from the shelf of its twins and saw that it wasn't a book at all.

A faded floral cover, when opened, revealed not the first of 500 or so pages, but a hollow. It was a box.

Inside the faux book were envelopes of every kind, bulging with the act of their contents being read

and resealed. The woman whose hands gently sifted through the envelopes was named Gwen.

The only thing that united the letters besides their location in the box was their addresses.

Victoria Kandinsky, 18 George Lane.

Gwen looked around the stuffed attic room.

It was octagonal.

Its walls simple wooden slats,

and its floor padded with layers of fraying rugs.

Across many of the walls stretched narrow bookshelves

bursting with their contents,

hanging model air balloons, delicate little figurines, Across many of the walls stretched narrow bookshelves bursting with their contents, hanging,

model air balloons, delicate little figurines, ice skating and ballet dancing. There was a Victorian doll house, a vessel filled with canes, a Roman shield, and in the place of honor, facing the largest

window in the room at the top of this old teetering house was a writing desk.

Gwen eyed a basket of marionettes, wondering if they might give her a hint as to whether to proceed or not.

Their dull, smiling expressions didn't change, so she gently set the box of letters on the desk and began to read.

...