The Telling of One Billion Ghost Stories (draft) - Part 19

Oh man did this chapter ever take longer than I was planning. ^^; It's not even the chapter itself that was the problem, but I was off work with a killer headache for half of last week, still a bit woozy for the rest of the week and at a few too many parties or being distracted via chat by certain people who kept throwing fantastic crack ideas at me over the weekend. That kind of week really chips down on your remaining hours of fic-editing productivity.

Anyway, on the upside, what I've got to post is the first of the backstory chapters, and if it seems unusually long to people, that would be because it clocks in at slightly north of 4000 words - roughly double most of the chapters I've posted so far. For the record, the flashback chapters collectively switched into present tense so many times when I was trying to write them that eventually I just gave in and let them have their way (comforting myself with the thought I could go back and fix them in the final copy. *cough*) Either way, the backstory chapters have come out in rather a different style to the rest of the story so far, which I hope won't wind up being too jarring.

Other parts: The original ficlets, Plot notes, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15, Part 16, Part 17, Part 18, Side Story 1

( Part 19 )