Alt M-11

NAME: Maggie Young

MENTOR: Molly Elizabeth Lee & Sarah Nicolas

TITLE: Diary of a Ghost

GENRE: YA Paranormal Romance

WORD COUNT: 75,000

PITCH:

For perpetual eighteen-year-old Cordelia Baxter, there are worse things than being dead: Falling in love with someone who is alive. That's just what happens when Julian Cahill moves into the house she haunts.

FIRST 250:

***

The Diary of Cordelia Ann Baxter

Born: January 28, 1971

Died: May 27, 1989

and

Julian Patrick Cahill

Born: October 21, 1989

Died: Once, but not yet

***

April 22, 2010

“Is anyone there?”

I meander into reluctant awareness, shaking my head to clear the foggy remnants of rejuvenation. It’s been a while since I’ve been… awake, so I have to blink a few times to shed the confusion. Then I see the girl sitting cross-legged on the floor with a Ouija board leveled on her knees.

She’s waiting for an answer.

From me.

It isn’t every day I get summoned by a Ouija-board-wielding teenager. In fact, this is the first time for me.

“If anyone is there can you please give me a sign?”

I roll my eyes. For real?

While she’s waiting patiently for me to pick up a lamp or slam a door or toss a book across the room, I study the lithe creature sitting on the floor in wonder, mainly because she’s alive. Everything about her screams living, breathing – alive - and I’m taken by a ferocious moment of jealousy. Everything from her vibrant green eyes to her long honey-blonde hair reeks of life, and I automatically hate her for it.

My sudden irritation causes a power surge and the lights flicker, unwittingly providing the sign she was hoping for.

She licks her lips, darts her eyes around the room, nervous now that she has the proof she wanted.

“Is someone really there?”