Lin Wei

We followed the weak voice and found an old man wedged in a crevice, his ankle swollen. "I came looking for the gold years ago," he said. "Don't make …

Marco held up a hand. "Wait. Fresh scratches means someone's still down here." He clicked off his headlamp. We stood in the dark, listening over the r…

Inside, our lights found shelves of dynamite crates, rusted tools, and a single iron strongbox on a table. Marco lifted the lid. Gold coins glinted, p…

Mirren didn't touch it. Nine winters had taught her one trick: when the dead reach up, you give them something else to hold. She pulled a bundle of dr…

"What bell?" Mirren demanded. The blind man pointed east with a shaking arm, toward the ruined watchtower she'd been warned never to climb. "They hung…

Edda reads the newest card, dated this year. The last line is different from the rest: 'We're sorry. We're finally telling.' Below it, all eight signa…

Edda walks the line of survivors instead. Eight blankets, eight pairs of red eyes. She asks each one the same simple question: who lived in room 9? Ev…

Edda holds the smudged page up to the morning light. Under the smear, she can still feel the dents the pen left in the paper. She rubs a pencil over i…

Mira pulled the plug instead of smashing it. The core went dark but the data inside survived, free now, loose in the Bureau's network. Somewhere it wo…

Before she touched anything, Mira read the order again. 'Erase the General.' Not his crimes. Not his victims. Him. She frowned. If she deleted the man…

Mira kept going, faster now. Each file she fed the machine made the room hotter. Then a voice came out of the warmth, dry and amused. 'You're not dele…

Mara pulled the blanket over her head. "Old houses do that," she whispered. "Go to sleep." Daniel tried. But the pacing matched his own heartbeat, and…

They searched every wall for a real way out. In the parlor they found a fresh mattress on the floor, exactly like the one they'd brought. A young coup…

Daniel opened the nearest door. An empty bedroom, bare floor, one window. But the floorboards in the center were worn smooth in a long oval, exactly t…

Theo grabs his coat instead and stands. "That's me," he says, nodding at the bus. "I should go." He's been doing this all year, leaving right before t…

"Then say it to me instead," she says. Theo reaches across and takes both her hands. "I love you. Have for ages." Outside, another bus rolls past, and…

Theo sits back down. "Okay," he says. "I'll stay." Then, after a breath: "But I'm moving to Seattle in three weeks, Mara. My brother got me a job. I w…

Pip decided to ask a grown-up first. She biked straight to Mr. Alvi's bait shop at the pier, where the old sailors traded stories. If anyone knew abou…

At the harbor, Pip found a row of crooked old boathouses. On the wall of the last one hung a faded paper that looked exactly like her map's missing ha…

Maren swung her lantern at the voice on instinct. It shattered, oil sprayed, and a flame caught the dry old pews. The chapel roared into fire. The voi…

Maren did the only thing she knew how to do. She grabbed the nearest bell rope and rang it backward, the way her teacher once warned her never to. The…

Maren couldn't do it. She would not trade a living person to keep her gift, no matter how many dead it helped. "No deal," she said, and dropped her ha…

Maren slammed the casebook shut and marched to the bell tower to find the prankster. But the rope hung still, gathering frost, and no footprints marke…

Maren took her spade to the far corner where no grave had ever been dug. The frozen ground gave way far too easily, like it had been waiting. Two feet…

Priya didn't stop. She was ahead, and ahead meant the bonus. She pushed her drill harder toward the glow. The turquoise light pulsed brighter and fast…

They both shut their drills down and met outside on the ice. Through the clear crust, the glow spread wide beneath their boots, soft and blue. "We can…

"Why give it all away for free?" Theo asks. Walt thinks for a moment. "When Marguerite got sick, everyone wanted to charge me. Doctors, the funeral ho…

Months pass. The bike runs now, but more than that, Theo never really leaves. He puts up a second sign next to Walt's, in his own handwriting: AND WHA…

An older woman comes in holding a wooden clock tight against her chest. "It stopped the night my husband passed," she says quietly. "Three years ago. …

Walt opens the robot's back and finds a tiny snapped wire. "See that?" he says, holding it up. "That's the whole problem right there. Small thing." Th…