Girl Detectives
Emily Capettini
i tell my friend heartbreak happens
Jill Khoury
Velma Learns to Love a Mystery
The mystery unsolved is merely a curiosity. There are no longer any cheap masks from the November 1st clearance racks, no costumes stolen from movie sets, no projectors hidden among the cobwebs in the eaves of an old mansion.
She doesn’t come home with her hands clenched to hide their shaking. She doesn’t lay awake and wonder what secrets will carve someone hollow and worry she’s glimpsing her own future. Velma doesn’t call Daphne just to hear her strained sleepless voice and know that was all real, and Daphne carries it, too, like a cough that sits in your lungs long after the rest of an illness has vanished.
The walls don’t swallow her up for pulling a book off the shelf or taking down a candle for more light to see by. It is only the skill of the artist that make a portrait’s eyes follow her through the room.
The only unmasking is the slow reveal of herself to another. Being seen is a pleasure, all their ghosts banished.
Plot Diagram for the Girl Detective
Setting (place & time): A poorly lit country road in late fall, just after 4pm when the sudden dark makes it feel like it has always been night. You and your friend the driver.
Exposition: The water-stained road atlas is hard to read in the dim glow of the penlight fished out of the glove compartment. Your friend says he forgot to replace the batteries. He said this last time, too.
Rising Action: You take a wrong turn somewhere, even though you grew up here. This road seems to have slipped off every map. You swear it was a different road last time. Your friend rolls his eyes when you say this, just as he did when you asked if he replaced the spare tire.
Climax: The tire blows out. There is a farmhouse or an amusement park no one’s ever heard of. There is a monster or a ghost, and it’s always a man underneath the disguise.
Falling Action: The police arrive. You ask what road you’re on. They laugh, then tell you a number you’re sure wasn’t on any of the signs. The driver laughs with them, his own mask slipping. He drives you home and never apologizes.
Resolution: The driver asks what you’re afraid of when you hesitate to join him next time. He says you’re controlling, you’re making him feel guilty. You get in the car. This time when the narrative repeats itself, you slip into the whiskey-dark fields, avoiding the roads where monsters prowl.
Emily Capettini (she/they) is a queer fiction writer from the Midwest who loves a good ghost story. They are the author of Girl Detectives (Porkbelly Press, 2022) and Thistle (Omnidawn, 2015), and their work has appeared in Passages North, Permafrost Magazine, and Okay Donkey, among many others. She is Associate Professor of English at Indiana State University, where she teaches courses in uncanny fiction, science fiction, and creative writing. Find Emily on BlueSky.
Jill Khoury (she/her) is a queer, disabled poet and artist. She holds an MFA from The Ohio State University and edits Rogue Agent, a journal of embodied poetry and art. Her artwork has appeared in Killjoy, Brevity, and the Pittsburgh Art Vending Machine. Winner of the Gatewood Prize, her second full-length poetry collection earthwork is available from Switchback Books. Connect with her at jillkhoury.com or on Instagram.