by Shirley Marr
I thought about Rebecca, and how a friend didn’t need to be perfect match in order to be an important part of my life. I thought about Mum, and how under the layers of superstition and fear lay her beating heart. I thought about Dad. I didn’t feel angry. I thought about Mister Fozziebum and the preloved dog I would soon meet at the shelter, waiting for his new life with me to begin. I thought about Nancy, and how it was funny that two people could find each other even though neither had ever gone.
I even thought about Ollie the owl and how he was now family.
And finally, I thought about myself. I knew who I was. The answer was simple and always there all along: I was Amy Lee. Sipping a Milo in my little-kid pyjamas I felt as if I was at the right place, in exactly the right moment. Sitting with a knight dressed in a lime-green suit who, as it turned out, was kinda awesome, after all.
There is no ending to this story because, as I’ve realised, stories don’t have endings, only beginnings.
Acknowledgements
Thank you to my publisher/editor/fairy godmother, Maryann Ballantyne, who is made of magic. Ee Von Loo, my Beta Girl, whose opinion I trust one hundred per cent and who will always be my one and only. My awesome husband, Kim Wisniewski, who so patiently waits for me when I disappear inside my head. Megan Burke, the Party Fairy, who coined the phrase “less paranormal, more abnormal!” And to Declan Neil Fernandez, because sometimes I wish I could just knock on your door, like in a movie and finally say, “Hi. Can we start over again?”
About the Author
Shirley Marr is an accountant by day and a masked writer by night. That’s when she becomes her true self — Writer Woman, with her trusty sidekick, BetaGirl.
Despite being blasted for writing an avant-garde short story completely in dialogue in Year Eight, and being fired from the Yearbook committee in Year Twelve for being disruptive, she still loves to write things her way. This type of behaviour led her to be the only person she knows who has ever been kicked out of a bookstore. Shirley wishes to keep living this rock-and-roll lifestyle. She is the author of two young adult novels, Fury and Preloved.
Visit Shirley at: www.shirleymarr.net
First published in 2012
by Black Dog Books
an imprint of Walker Books Australia Pty Ltd
Locked Bag 22, Newtown
NSW 2042 Australia
www.walkerbooks.com.au
This ebook edition published in 2014
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
Text © 2012 Shirley Marr
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise – without the prior written permission of the publisher.
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:
Marr, Shirley, author.
Preloved / Shirley Marr.
For young adults.
Subjects: Supernatural – Juvenile fiction.
Teenagers – Juvenile fiction.
A823.4
ISBN: 978-1-925126-11-2 (ePub)
ISBN: 978-1-925126-10-5 (e-PDF)
ISBN: 978-1-925126-12-9 (.PRC)
Cover image © Getty Images/Roberto A Sanchez
Once one believes in what one dreams of,
one renders oneself vulnerable to the tricks
of deities and ghosts
YUAN MEI
For Mum, who is the most important
character in my life.
And for everyone who prefers
abnormal to paranormal
and a bad romance to a love story.