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eBook Category: Fantasy
eBook Description: When young Billy Cates finds a girl trapped in a glass coffin behind a burned-out grocery store, he thinks he's stumbled into a fairy tale ... but it turns out to be something far more complicated and dangerous than that.

eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, Published: Realms of Fantasy, 2004
Fictionwise Release Date: October 2004

29 Reader Ratings: Great Good OK Poor

Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [206 KB], eReader (PDB) [29 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [15 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [15 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [76 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [85 KB], hiebook (KML) [45 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [39 KB], iSilo (PDB) [13 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [16 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [44 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [24 KB]
Words: 4979
Reading time: 14-19 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

Billy Cates found the glass casket behind the burned-out Safeway, tucked in between the rusty dumpster and a stack of splintery wooden pallets. Billy leaned his bike against the soot-blackened brick wall and approached the casket. It was simply made, just an oblong box six feet in length, with beveled corners that reminded Billy of his Dad's cut-crystal brandy decanter. Dad hadn't taken the decanter with him when he left (he hadn't taken much of anything), but Mom had smashed it in the fireplace.

The casket rested atop a board laid across two sawhorses. Billy stood at a respectful distance, looking. A girl lay inside, clothed in a red dress, white hands crossed on her stomach. Billy couldn't see the girl's face because of the sunlight glaring on the glass, so he stepped closer, sneakers scuffing on the asphalt. He wanted to see her face; he wanted to run away.

Curiosity won. Billy leaned close to the glass, his head throwing a shadow on the casket and cutting the glare so that he could see the girl's face. Her eyes were closed, which seemed only natural. Her dark red hair matched her dress, the color of cherry Kool-Aid stains on a white tablecloth. She looked about sixteen. There were girls at school prettier than her, in the higher grades--the girl in the casket didn't have much of a chin, and her hands were chubby. Her skin was beautiful, though, white and unblemished.

Billy wondered if she was dead, if this was the work of a serial killer, like in the movies--the Glass Casket Killer, something like that. If she was dead, Billy had to call 911 and tell the police. They wouldn't believe him, probably, but if they sent someone, they'd see it was true, a dead girl in a glass box. Or maybe she was a magic princess, like in that Disney movie, and she just needed a kiss from a prince to wake her. Billy wrinkled his nose. He wasn't a prince, and he didn't want to kiss her, and she was trapped in a glass box anyway.