“Always the gentlemen,” I said to him under my breath as we walked to the limo hand in hand. “My parents just basically gave you permission to keep me out all night. You do realize that, don’t you?”
“But I won’t. I want them to trust me. It’s important.”
He brushed a stray tendril behind my ear and stared at my face. He always looked at me the same way, with something akin to amazement, like he didn’t quite believe I was even possible. I couldn’t understand why he felt that way about me. He was the spectacular one.
I took a whiff of my roses to hide my embarrassment, and just then the ghost of an old lady appeared beside me. Fanny. She had on a giant blue hat with a big feather on it, white gloves, and a blue velvet dress. She looked down her nose at me, through a little pair of glasses perched there.
“Roses. How lovely. Did I ever tell you I had red roses at my funeral? Heaps of them. From all my admirers.”
“Yes,” I said as softly as I could as the others noisily tried to pile into the limo. In prom dresses it was harder than it looked. “You’ve told me. Many times.”
Fanny had been on the stage, a ballet dancer, and had died in 1910, “before the world got ugly with war,” she always said. I had no idea why she’d suddenly decided to hang around me, but ghosts were mysterious creatures. Sometimes they did things for no logical reason at all, kind of like teenaged girls.
“He’s so handsome,” she said as she fawned over Josh. “You’re a lucky girl, Zoe.”
“I most certainly am.”
Fanny tried to run her hands through Josh’s glorious mane, but of course she couldn’t. Her hands slipped through his head, causing him to shiver.
He looked at me, raising one golden eyebrow. “Do we have a visitor?”
I nodded. “Fanny. She’s trying to fondle you again.”
Fanny let out a little noise that sounded like a “hmpf.”
“I’m here to warn you,” she said.
I frowned. “About what?”
“About a dangerous wind coming this way…and something evil is riding on it.”
“Can you be a bit less vague, please?”
Fanny shrugged her shoulders. “Sorry. It’s all I’ve got. When I hear more, I’ll let you know.”
I sighed. Something was definitely up. All the ghosts had been acting even stranger than usual lately. I’d learned to trust their instincts. They tuned into the world in a very different way than the living. They sensed when thing were about to happen, especially bad things.
The clouds rolled in and rain began to fall just as we slipped into the limo for the ride to the school. As we pulled away, I looked out the window to see a whole squadron of ghosts standing behind our parents. Waving to us. When ghosts gathered like that, it was never a good sign.
I leaned back against the leather seat, rested my head on Josh’s broad shoulder, and hoped I could be wrong, but I knew I wasn’t. Something bad was coming, and it was heading right our way.
About the Author
Award winning author Abigail Drake has spent her life traveling the world, collecting stories wherever she visited. Abigail is a trekkie, a book hoarder, the master of the Nespresso machine, a red wine addict, and the mother of three boys (probably the main reason for her red wine addiction). A Labrador named Capone is the most recent addition to her family, and she blogs about him as a way of maintaining what little sanity she has left.
Abigail is the winner of the prestigious 2017 Prism Award for her paranormal romance,Traveller, and the International Digital Award for her young adult book, Tiger Lily. In addition, she was a finalist in the Golden Pen, the Golden Leaf, the Dante Rossetti Book Award, and the Cygnus Award for Science Fiction and Speculative Fiction.
For more information, check out her website at www.abigaildrake.com.
Also by Abigail Drake
The Enchanted Garden Cafe
Saying Goodbye, Part One
Saying Goodbye, Part Two
Saying Goodbye, Special Combined Edition
Sophie and Jake
Delayed Departure
Traveller
Valentine Kisses
Can’t Buy Me Love
Tiger Lily (Dark Blossoms Book 1) Page 19