No offense taken, I gladly accept any criticism. Also, I'm overjoyed that you enjoyed it so much even though it needs to be polished up. I was only going to post the first three chapters on teen ink, because I'm hoping on publishing this. However, I was wondering if you would be interested in reading the whole book. I've been having trouble with receiving feedback from people who can actually read it until the end, if you'd like I could share it with you on google docs so you could comment on it directly. I could really use the help as a fellow writer, as I try to bring my book one step closer to being published.

(I apologize for the absurdly long comment, I have a tendency to write essays like this in the comment section :P)

I remember reading a part of this you posted as an article a little while back; I'm really glad you posted more of it! It has this kind of authentically mysterious atmosphere to it, and it is very well-written overall! There were a few flaws that caught my eye however, and while I liked the story, these flaws were certainly distracting and I really do have to address them.  (I hope you're a fan of brutal honesty; you're gonna be mad at me if you aren't...) First of all, you have this habit of using commas instead of semicolons in spots where semicolons would be the right choice, and because of that, the affected sentences become unorganized and rather confusing. One of the plainest examples of this is found early on in Chapter 1: "This one took the shape of a giant bear that towered over me at ten feet tall, when it reared up upon its hind legs, it dwarfed me at fifteen feet." That first comma should definitely be changed into a semicolon to improve the sentence's clarity, and there are several other places throughout this piece where a semicolon would help immensely. Second, the narration during the action scenes (particularly the chase scene in the prologue) is just uninvolving and kind of tedious. I mean, it makes sense, considering the action is not the highlight of the story, but that being said, you still shouldn't have described the entire chase like that; it doesn't sound like Josephine cares at all about what's going on at that part, and therefore, the reader doesn't care.  Third, I think Lurker should have been more prominent. I mean, he/she/it/whatever obviously plays an important role in the story, but it didn't really feel like it that much until it was addressed again in Chapter 3. Lurker just kind of felt like an afterthought at some parts, and I don't think that's what you intended.  Fourth, the end of Chapter 2. Now let me get this straight here: for the most part, the dialogue in this story is SUPERB. However, one of the characters (I couldn't tell which) apparently very casually saying "Oh well I guess I'll just have to kill you and be on my way" was a very unpleasant surprise in such an emotional part of the story. That one line comes off as rather careless to me, and the fact that I can't tell who's saying it or why they're saying it does not help in the slightest. The narration at the end of Chapter 2 is also quite jumbled, admittedly to the extent where I couldn't tell what exactly was happening. I mean, I knew the basics, but then there was that thing with the knife and Samuel's heart and...yeah, you lost me. I just couldn't tell what was going on from that angle. I actually thought he died until I read Chapter 3 and then I had to go back and reread and...yeah. Sorry. And everything else was excellent. Josephine and Samuel were both INCREDIBLY enjoyable characters to read about (especially Samuel) and so were the other minor characters that added their own contributions to the intricacy of the story. I think you still could've gone into more depth with the bond between Josephine and Margaret (It would be cool to see a flashback with actual dialogue between the two) but obviously, this work is not completed, and you still have room for much more of that. As I said before, the dialogue is, for the most part, FANTASTIC, and at its best, it could hold its own against some of the best dialogue I've ever read. (Maybe that's a stretch, but either way, it's VERY good.) While I said the narration and description at the end of Chapter 2 is rather confusing, it is actually very well-done in pretty much every other part of the story, and I love the descriptive language you used as well. Overall, this is a very remarkable story. It has its flaws, but the characters are interesting, the atmosphere is intriguing, and half the stuff I said was bad about it could probably be disproven because come on, you're only three chapters in! I look forward to reading more of this, and I hope you gain something from this colossus of a comment; I wouldn't have written it if I didn't like your idea. :)