Story 259: "The Ghost of You" by Julie Fortune

[wendelah1]

Julie Fortune's "The Ghost of You" is a casefic that is also an X-File, and a very creepy one, too. At only a little over 10,000 words, it's less daunting than some of the other fics sitting in the nomination post. In structure, it reminds me very much of the much earlier fic by Jane Mortimer, "The Sin Eater." Mortimer's fic might even have influenced it, who knows?

In any case, the prose is high caliber because the writer is a pro, who has published novels under several pseuds. She even published a tie-in for Stargate SG-1 under her fandom penname, "Sacrifice Moon." It's very good.

Here's a short excerpt from near the beginning of the fic. Mulder and Scully are at the crime scene in Restonville, West Virginia.

Strobe flashes from a wandering photographer lit up the interior. It was nothing more than more grass and mud, and in the middle –

Mulder blinked. "What the hell – "

Scully stepped forward, went to one knee next to the nude body. It was dug into the ground to a depth of nearly three feet, mud squashed up around it. It had been embedded in the mud, face down.

"Mulder." Scully gloved up and reached out to take hold of the woman’s hand, lifting it by the thumb.

Hands did not move that way. Not like – empty sacks, the fingers bending like rubber, no stiffness to it at all.

Boneless. Scully lifted higher. The arm followed the hand, a piece of dead spaghetti.

"Christ," one of the deputies said softly. Detective Harmon didn’t say anything at all, but his face paled. Scully carefully, almost reverently, let the woman’s hand fall back in place.

"Can we turn her over?" she asked.

"Yeah," Harmon said faintly. "We got all the pictures. Better you than me."

She looked at Mulder. Drafted. Nobody wanted to help – twelve deputies and forensic specialists crowded in the room, and every shoulder was pressed firmly against canvas. Mulder tried for a cool expression and took hold of the dead woman’s shoulder.

It felt like a cut of meat at the supermarket. Boneless. He swallowed hard as the body folded down the middle, like a paper doll. Scully helped him get her all the way over and in something like a normal position.

She had no face. Whatever bone structure had been present was obliterated, the face a mass of soft tissue, ruptured like something pulled up from the ocean too fast. No eyes. No teeth, either; the mouth, or what had been the mouth, shifted like jelly, and there were audible gulps from the others in the room.

"Scully?" Mulder cleared his throat. "I take it she’s real."

Scully has a theory, Mulder has a different one. There's thunder and lightening, reports of lights in the sky. They'll identify the body and...I don't want to give it away. It's a ghost story, but with a couple of twists.

You can the read the fic two different places. I like the link at the internet archive that's from her old website because I can copy, paste and print it for reading. I hate reading on computer screens.

At Fanfic for the Fearless via the Wayback Machine: "The Ghost of You" by Julie Fortune. You can find her other fic there, too, if you're interested.

And at the Enigmatic Doctor's site in one long narrow column: The Ghost of You.

She's deleted her non-fandom livejournal, and let her fandom website go down, but juliefortune is still there, and she left her gmail address on her last post.

The nomination post is always open for your suggestions. Thanks to everyone who helps keep this site running and (relatively) active, with your comments here, and your links on other social media sites.

Comments

[infinitlight.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed this. I usually like the idea behind stories that are structured in a similar way to an episode of the show - I say "the idea behind" that kind of story because I have read a lot of stories like that, that leave me kind of unsatisfied. I think this is because many of those stories rely solely on plot and don't explore the characters much. I think I'm a "character" person over a "plot" person, although I prefer to have both, one feeding from the other. I thought this story was a pretty good combination of the two without being too mired down in character detail.

I always appreciate shorter stories because it means I can usually comment in a reasonably timely fashion, but now I'm going to contradict that by saying I think The Ghost of You should have been longer! I liked the spooky feel of it but I think the impact of the scary reveal would have been bigger if the story had spent a little more time sitting with it.

[wendelah1]

I thought it was a good mix of plot and character, too.

I always appreciate shorter stories because it means I can usually comment in a reasonably timely fashion, but now I'm going to contradict that by saying I think The Ghost of You should have been longer! I liked the spooky feel of it but I think the impact of the scary reveal would have been bigger if the story had spent a little more time sitting with it.

I finally went back to the story and reread it. I can't figure out where I'd add words. They find out that the body is her, which flips them back in time but they're aware of it this time--maybe because they're together? I think if Fortune added anything it would have to be plot. Mulder and Scully could spend more time investigating what's causing the time slips. But I think more plot would slow the momentum and diminish the emotional trajectory. I remember feeling a little cheated by the ending because in order to save them both, it resets everything again. It's a tricky structure to work with, repeating day stories. Usually in this type of story, there's someone who becomes aware fairly quickly that the day is repeating. In Groundhog Day, it's Bill Murry's character. In Monday, it's Pam Driscoll. In this case, it's Mulder who gets clued in, but it's like he has to figure it out every time. The sex has to happen to save their lives but once they're saved, it never happens again, and time goes back on track. What! No more sexy tiems!? That's right, Reader. We are back in the universe of the series where they're celibate. Damn it.

[infinitlight.livejournal.com]

The story reset is really commonly used in this kind of story I think in part because it allows the stakes to be higher within the time loop. Terrible things can happen, characters can die, but they'll be safe in the end because the timeline will reset.

They could have investigated more (although I don't necessarily see the need for a hard sci-fi explanation - it's XF, sometimes weird things happen because this is a weird universe and it's not necessarily why or how it happens that is interesting), or there could have been more character reflection. Don't get me wrong, I liked that the story read fast, but I think I'm missing emotional resonance. Was anyone truly upset?

[wendelah1]

It was several years ago but the first time through, I felt emotional--shocked, stricken. I enjoyed reading it again because I enjoyed puzzling out the structure. Reading fanfiction, I bring so many emotional connections from canon that I get uncomfortable if authors spell out what the characters are feeling in much detail. But, my betas are always telling me the opposite so I guess I'm a freak. As an aside, it's hard for me write my characters' emotions in stories and I'm usually a wreck afterward.