Everyone Emily has ever loved has been brutally murdered. The killer has never been caught, but Emily knows who's responsible. She is. It's the only possible explanation. Emily is the one thing all the victims have in common, which can only mean that someone--or something--is killing them to make her suffer. Determined never to subject another person to the same horrible fate as her parents, friends, and pets, Emily sequesters herself at a private boarding school, keeping her classmates at a distance with well-timed insults and an unapproachable air. Day after day, she loses herself in the writing of Emily Dickinson--the poet makes a perfect friend, since she's already dead. Emily's life is lonely, but it's finally peaceful. That is, until two things happen. A corpse appears on the steps of the school. And a new girl insists on getting close to Emily--unknowingly setting herself up to become the killer's next victim.