The Lovely Bones

Chapter 1

I was slipping away, that’s what it felt like, life was leaving me, but I wasn’t afraid; then I remembered: “There was something I was meant to do; somewhere I was meant to be.” … I was in the blue horizon between heaven and earth. The days were unchanging and every night I dream the same dream. The smell of damp earth. The scream no one heard. The sound of my heart beating like a hammer against cloth and I would hear them calling, the voices of the dead. I wanted to follow them to find a way out but I would always come back to the same door. And I was afraid. I knew if I went in there I would never come out. When my mother came to my room, I realized that all this time, I had been waiting for her. I had been waiting so long, I was afraid she wouldn’t come. … Nobody notices when we leave. I mean, the moment when we really choose to go. At best you might feel, a whisper or the wave of a whisper, undulating down. My name is Salmon, like the fish. First name: Autumn. I was 14 years old, when I was murdered on December 6th 1973. I was here for a moment, and then I was gone. I wish you all, a long, and happy life.