Page 147 of Our Daughter's Bones

You have to help me bury him.

The smell of pine and cedar.

Mud like dough in between her toes.

Melody’s shallow breathing while digging the grave.

Dried blood under her fingernails.

“It can’t be,” she whispered, unable to pry her eyes off him.

When her brain recovered, her only thought was: If her father was here, who had they buried in the woods that night?

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