'An Orderly Queue' by Lyndsey Croal

 

You ask them to form an orderly queue, but ghosts have a habit of disorder. They don’t yet understand their forms, drifting into one another, limbs flailing like a bloom of jellyfish. One by one, you call them forth to assign their hauntings. You send a man to his former home, to whisper within walls. A woman will go to a lighthouse where she’ll sing across crashing waves, a new local tale unfolding. Then a girl steps forth. She’s more whole than the others, and you remember when it was you standing there, waiting, nervous. Finally, your replacement has come.