It’s funny how serendipitously following one link can lead to the discovery of something entirely unrelated here on the ol’ intartubes.

Ask MetaFilter recently considered the question, What are the worst songs?, and in opining that teen death songs (such as “Tell Laura I Love Her” are the absolute worst, commenter jenfullmoon noted in passing:

Amusingly enough, Seanan McGuire’s book “Sparrow Hill Road” uses those characters in a few stories, in which Laura has become a vengeful professor and ghost Tommy has long since forgiven the main ghost character for not managing to stop him from being an idiot.

At which I cocked my head like a quizzical basset hound and discovered that the book was born out of a linked series of short stories that McGuire wrote for online magazine The Edge of Propinquity. The series focuses on Rose Marshall, a hitchhiking ghost seeking revenge on the man originally responsible for her death.

The first story is still online at the magazine site (along with some introductory notes). The rest are available through archive.today:

1. “Good Girls Go To Heaven” in The Edge of Propinquity (January 2010)
2. “Dead Man’s Party” in The Edge of Propinquity (February 2010)
3. “Tell Laura I Love Her” in The Edge of Propinquity (March 2010)
4. “Building A Mystery” in The Edge of Propinquity (April 2010)
5. “El Viento del Diablo” in The Edge of Propinquity (May 2010)
6. “Last Dance With Mary Jane” in The Edge of Propinquity (June 2010)
7. “Do You Want To Dance” in The Edge of Propinquity (July 2010)
8. “Dead Man’s Curve” in The Edge of Propinquity (August 2010)
9. “Last Train” in The Edge of Propinquity (September 2010)
10. “Bad Moon Rising” in The Edge of Propinquity (October 2010)
11. “Faithfully” in The Edge of Propinquity (November 2010)
12. “Thunder Road” in The Edge of Propinquity (December 2010)

I quite like the idea of the old urban legends having deeper, interconnected roots.