Lake Lewisia #1005

She tracked by scent, which was not unusual, and she worked best when given some remnant of the missing from which to familiarize herself with the olfactory traces they left behind, which was likewise common enough. Clients offered her moth-eaten and unfashionable dresses, and leather jackets long since gone cracked with age and neglect, and scraps of handmade lace that still carried the hints of the crafter's sweaty palms, and she sniffed out what remained of the spirit behind them. Her career traded the emotional burden of fresh grief for the more leaden longing that haunted those who desperately wanted to find the ghost, if one existed, of their beloved and often ancient dead.

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LL#1005