by Alexie Aaron
The Middle House:
Return to Cold Creek Hollow
A Haunted Series Novel by
Alexie Aaron
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
~
Copyright 2014 – Diane L. Fitch writing as Alexie Aaron
ALSO BY ALEXIE AARON
HAUNTED SERIES
in order
The Hauntings of Cold Creek Hollow
Ghostly Attachments
Sand Trap
Darker than Dark
The Garden
Puzzle
Old Bones
Things that Go Bump in the Night
Something Old
The Middle House: Return to Cold Creek Hollow
Coming Summer 2014
Renovation
PEEPS LITE
Eternal Maze 3.1
Homecoming 3.2
Checking Out 9.1
Ice and Steel 9.2
CIN FIN-LATHEN MYSTERIES
Decomposing
Death by Saxophone
Discord
I dedicate this book to all the survivors of the winter of 2013-2014. Whether you kept yourself sane or lost it a time or two, I salute you. And to my readers who kept me stable with their encouraging notes and humor, I thank you.
My special thanks go out to the residents of Bliss Cottage. You are, and will always be, my inspiration.
Table of Contents
The Tracker
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Alexie Aaron
The Tracker
Young shoots pushed through the earth where the sun had melted the last of the spring snow. Their strength was not immediately recognized. Their transparent green did little to tell the story of their arduous trek through the warming ground. Who knew the story of the brown pod that housed and nourished the seed until the seed had broken through it, or how the roots reached outward and downward, moving quickly to support the tender stalk? Only one noticed the arrival of the blades of grass. Only one heard them push through the soil and reach upward to bask in the morning sunlight.
Tonia raised her head off the cold ground where she had been lying these morning hours. She adjusted her eyes to take in the forest. Slowly, with careful deliberation, she eased her long body out of the sleeping bag and, with the grace of a dancer, rose and stretched, paying tribute to the orb, the giver of life.
She bent from the hips, letting her fingers brush the new blades of the Prairie Brome. Moving her hands slowly upward, supported by strong arms and shoulders, Tonia felt each vertebrae fall into place as she stretched. Her hips, supporting her weight, twisted, taking into account the extra pounds the winter had deposited there with forced deference. Tonia was a woman of middle years and no longer a child who ran freely with no body-conscious thoughts or pressures of employment. She had a job to do, a very important one.
She moved stealthily down the hillside and, with careful steps, walked between the trees. Old and new, they each had a story to tell. She touched the bark of an oak and noticed the resilience of the clothing the tree wore. The winter had been cold, brutal, but still the spirit of the tree remained intact. It would grow and thrive as the days became longer. It did not leave the earth to move amongst its forebearers. Not this tree, not yet. Tonia moved her hand higher until she felt the thick wisp that was left when the spirit she had been hunting had moved quickly through the wooded area. She smiled and acknowledged with silence that they always leave a trace.
This spirit had come from the east. The residue of the city soiled the clear energy of the forest. Tonia rubbed her fingers together, and tiny particles of pollution told the story of where the soul had been in the last few days. She closed her eyes and saw a brick and mortar fireplace where creosote had formed from the overuse of unseasoned wood. Recreational fire perhaps? She shook off the question. It wasn’t necessary. Too many facts clouded her inner eye. She needed to discipline herself, Lorna had told her. Just because she could sense ink on the paper didn’t mean she needed to read every word.
Was she overly thorough? Perhaps, but it was part of her genetics, a hard part to deny.
She heard the approach of the crow and managed to still her stance. Her eyes moved upward, watching as the steady beat of the wings stopped a moment, and the creature began to glide, its heavy body bringing it subtly to earth.
“When is a crow not a crow?” she heard her mother’s voice ask her from her memory palace.
“When it’s a person,” Tonia the child answered. “Why does the person become the crow?”
“When it is hunting, daughter. Careful of hunting-people, they will sacrifice you for their own pleasure.”
“I don’t understand. How can hunting be a pleasure?”
“When it feeds the ego and not the stomach. A true hunter finds no pleasure in killing.”
“But spirit hunters do not kill. You cannot kill the dead,” Tonia said.
Her mother moved her hand upwards as if she was grasping another older more experienced hand that Tonia could not see. “Tonia, there’s dead, and then there’s dead.”
Tonia pushed the memory back into place to deal with another time. Her pagan mother’s words were important as they were cryptic. She wasn’t convinced that her mother didn’t say things this way in order to mask that she didn’t truly know how to answer her daughter. Or perhaps the answers would cloud Tonia’s perception, block her sight.
The crow began to beat its wings again and moved off.
She waited a heartbeat and resumed following the spirit’s trail. It took her out of the woods and into a garden of granite and marble. There she saw dozens of residue-leaving trails that drifted in the thickness of the air. They were all moving in one direction. Carefully, she followed them through the grave markers and climbed over the iron fence. Only when she put her foot on the hardness of the paved road did she stop and take in her surroundings.
Tonia picked up her phone, pressed one on her speed dial and waited for it to be answered. “Once again I am here, Lorna,” she said quietly. “Once again the trail has brought me here.”
“Tell me where you are?” Lorna asked.
“I am standing at the end of a road. To my right is a graveyard. To my left are the skeletons of many burned out homes. Behind me there is a church with an unholy past. Before me are three houses. Two have been scarred by evil. They anchor the last house to the earth. It is this house that the spirits travel to. It is in this house they take sanctuary.”
“Tell me about this house?”
; “Two stories, a remodeled colonial. I see many spirits moving behind the glass of the windows. Some move with anger, others with a numbness that time has settled upon them. One moves with purpose. This is the spirit we have been tracking,” Tonia said.
“You say the spirit is in a house. Which house again, Ton?” Lorna asked.
“It’s in the middle house, the middle house in a place called Cold Creek Hollow.”
Chapter One
Mia pushed the hood of her jacket off her head. She turned and faced the sun and shook her head until the confined tendrils of her Nordic blonde hair fell softly about her shoulders. The air still held the memory of the cold night, but the sun was working on it. A breeze moved between the trees, and as it blew by her, it brought the spicy scent of autumn mixed with the rebirthed freshness of spring.
Mia leaned on her rake a moment and said a short prayer of thanks. She thanked the universe for her marriage, her friends and their safe journey through one of the toughest winters she could remember. The farmhouse, built by Stephen Murphy a century and a half ago, had withstood the cold blasts of air with dignity, and with the aid of the thermal paned windows the renovators had put in five years ago, she was able to move through the winter-assaulted house in comfort. Unfortunately though, in their rush to make the old farmhouse energy efficient, they had neglected the charm of the place and blocked off the cellar there and filled in the one under the barn. As soon as they could afford it, she and Ted planned on building onto the farmhouse. Mia wanted a sunroom with a small greenhouse attached. Ted thought this would give them the room to sink a new stairwell and reopen the cellar.
The original architect of the farmhouse didn’t care much for the cellar. His wife’s corpse had been entombed there by his mother soon after his body had been found under a felled tree. Their story was a sad one, starting with an arranged marriage by his domineering mother which nourished Chastity’s bad behavior, making her a wayward wife. Stephen Murphy paid for his failings as a husband with his life. She paid for her lust with hers. For years, the two of them had haunted the property, Chasity inside the house waiting for her lover, he outside caring for his land. He wasn’t a lonely ghost but a bitter one. That was until a teenage sensitive named Mia Cooper befriended him. Their friendship gave him a sense of purpose tinged with the regret of what he hadn’t had in life and certainly would never have in death.
It took the arrival of an amateur group of ghost hunters to shake things up and set Murphy free. These ghost hunters had asked him to join their team and help them to understand his world and the spirits that dwelt there.
Mia resumed her raking. She drew out the dead leaves, being careful not to injure the daffodil shoots that were pushing through the earth around the crocuses that had already dominated the frosty ground.
“So much life,” Mia said out loud.
Ted Martin, her husband of a few months, looked over at his wife. She frequently talked to herself, but he waited to make sure she wasn’t addressing him. Today, he had taken on the washing of the front windows. With his height, he didn’t need a ladder. He wrinkled his nose at the scent of the vinegar water mixture Mia had convinced him was better than the store-bought window cleaner. He took a step back and had to admit she was right. The glass sparkled. He could not only see his reflection, but that of their dog Maggie who was chasing her tail in the yard behind him.
“She’s not the brightest canine I’ve come across,” he said to Mia.
Mia turned around and agreed, “But she’s more lovable somehow.”
“I hear Cid has a foolproof way of teaching her not to run off at the jump of a rabbit,” Ted said, walking down the steps and over to his wife.
“I hate to tell him that dogs don’t watch television,” Mia said. “His showing her Lady and the Tramp and 101 Dalmatians as cautionary tales, isn’t going to make her think twice before hightailing it to parts unknown.”
“You have to give him credit for thinking outside the box though,” Ted said proudly.
Cid Garrett, his friend since middle school, had moved into the small efficiency apartment over the PEEPs office in the adjacent renovated barn. He had come to Illinois from Kansas, ferrying a vehicle and equipment for PEEPs and had stayed. Mia had no problem with the Kansan living with them, something Ted appreciated since he really didn’t know how to get him to leave. Cid’s construction background and cooking talents had made him indispensable to the young couple. Mia liked to call Cid her and Ted’s wife.
“Speaking of Cid,” Mia started, “Burt wanted me to remind him to fill out the medical insurance paperwork. PEEPs is now making enough money to take care of us slaves.”
“Mia Cooper Martin!” Ted admonished. “You are not a slave to the Paranormal Entity Exposure Partners, nor am I, Cid, Audrey, or Murphy.”
“Keep telling yourself that. Mike and Burt are the partners, and we are the… partnees?”
“That’s not a word,” Ted pointed out.
“Then what?” Mia bated him, hiding her wry smile. She gazed up at her auburn-haired husband and waited for his response.
“Team members. That’s what we are,” Ted said. “Although, it seems to me that we do most of the work and…”
“Slaves,” Mia said and returned to her spring cleanup.
Murphy, who had been silently observing the couple, pondered what it was to be part of the PEEPs team. He received compensation for his contributions. Not money, as he had no earthly use for it. Instead, Burt had bought him seedlings to plant. Mia helped him to manage his land. True, she held the deed, but he knew that she considered the property his. The Martins owned the house and buildings. This was fine with the ghost. What use did he have for the confining walls of the house and barn? He preferred to haunt the woods and rolling farmland of the acreage that surrounded what Cid liked to call the PEEPs compound.
He watched over the people of the team, along with the crazy dog they named Maggie Mae. The dog could see him, much to the delight of the ghost. She had accepted him as being real the moment Cid and he discovered her at the shelter.
He bent down and patted her on the head. She jumped up and was dismayed when she fell right through him.
Murphy apologized, “Sorry girl, I wasn’t paying attention.” He needed to concentrate on being solid to the living. It was one of his emerging powers. Since he and Mia had become a ghost fighting duo, he had developed the ability to break the tether of his resting space. He could travel in vehicles. He had even learned to travel with Mia when she moved in a bilocated state of being or, as she liked to call it, OOBing.
“Excuse me,” a female voice surprised Murphy. Not only did she seem to appear out of thin air, but she was addressing him and looking him full in the face.
He looked at the comely woman and said, “Yes?”
“I’m Tonia Toh, pronounced toe, and I think that you and your friends may be able to help me with my inquiries.”
Her buttery voice seemed to hold a bit of mirth on the edges. She stood taller than Murphy. She had fair hair and long limbs, but her eyes reminded Murphy of the railway workers he had worked shoulder to shoulder with in his youth. The dark brown orbs searched his face, and although he couldn’t see his reflection in her eyes, he knew that she saw him plain as day.
“Come,” he said, too embarrassed at being caught staring to add any other words.
She followed him.
Maggie slowed her steps to walk next to the woman who lowered her hand so the dog could smell her scent as they walked.
Ted saw them approach and tapped Mia on the shoulder, informing her, “We have company.”
Mia turned around and stared at the tall woman walking beside Murphy. She wore an old, navy peacoat over baggy blue jeans. On her feet she wore a worn but expensive pair of boots. She reached out her hand to Ted and said, “Tonia Toh.”
“I’m Ted Martin, and this is my wife Mia,” he said, shaking her hand.
“Now you know who I am, time to explain why I am here,” s
he started.
“And why you left us your calling card,” Mia interrupted, producing a gold button from the pocket of her jacket. “I believe this is yours.”
“My, yes, where did you find it?” she asked.
“On the drive a few months back,” Mia said. “You’ve been here before.”
“Briefly, I think it was in the middle of the night. Just passing through. I didn’t think I would make any friends waking you up at that time,” she explained. “I had hoped to find Mr. Murphy about, but I was out of luck.”
“I have to say, you have us intrigued, Tonia,” Mia said. “We don’t get many visitors out our way. And certainly not any that can see our friend Stephen Murphy.”
“Their loss,” she said meaningfully. “Let me get to the point. You’ve got a problem in the hollow, and it’s not going to be wished away.”
Mia’s stomach clenched.
Tonia continued, “You see, it’s the middle house. It’s time we opened up Pandora’s box and see what flies out.”
“We were told it would be taken care of by Father Santos’s group,” Mia told her.
“And has it?”
“No,” Mia admitted. “They’ve not caused any problems that I know about. Can’t we let them be?”
“I see your point, but since Miss Daisy has left her post, the house has been attracting the wrong clientele,” Tonia explained. “I tracked a spirit from San Francisco to the hollow. I lost it after it entered the house,” she confessed.
“Is that what you do?” Ted asked. “Track spirits?”
“That and other things. My partner Lorna Grainger and I serve justice to the spirit world,” she enlightened them. “The spirit I tracked is very dangerous. It has sought and received asylum in the middle house of the three in the hollow.”
“I don’t mean to be rude, but I only have your word for it,” Mia challenged.