As she walked down the street, the ghosts in their white sheets watched her. With every one of her five senses, and with her extra sixth sense too, she could tell there were more spirits to be found in Twilight Ridge. They were lurking in the shadows, waiting to pounce.
She might not be able to avoid all of them. But as much as she could, Katie avoided the basement of the Heritage Inn. That was where the paranormal activity in her new home was centered. It was also where they kept the extra supplies, but unless she needed to go down those stairs for more paper towels or another ten pound can of green beans to make lunch for the guests, she let her boyfriend take care of anything to do with the basement.
She smiled as she walked past another decorative ghost hanging down from the awning of the bakery. It wasn’t the ghost she was smiling at, that was for sure. It was the thought of her boyfriend. That happened sometimes when she thought of Riley Harris. He was an amazing man and had done so much for her. As men went, she’d more than lucked out. With Riley, it was like she’d won the lottery.
His face came into view in her mind’s eye, swimming into sharp focus. Then his body, naked and strong like he’d been with her last night. More of last night came to mind as well, but she quickly pushed that back and concentrated on just his face. If she got to fantasizing about the way he looked--and felt--between the sheets, then she’d end up heading right back to the Inn, and pulling him up to their bedroom at the end of the second-floor hallway.
Hmm. She might just do that anyway, even though they had guests in-house, and she’d never been exactly able to stay quiet when he got going on her.
In short, she wouldn’t get anything done today unless she kept her fantasies on his bright green eyes and his unruly shock of brown hair and his quirky little smile. She knew every line on that face, etched forever in the memory of her heart.
Right. So, back to her day.
She was doing a few errands before heading back to the Inn. It hadn’t exactly been a packed house recently at the Heritage Inn, now that the stories of the troubles in Twilight Ridge had faded into old news. There hadn’t been any death and mayhem here for months. It had been a pleasant little respite for everyone, especially for Katie and Riley, but it had been bad for the tourism business. People began to lose interest when there wasn’t anyone dying, or churches burning down.
Thus the mayor’s grand idea of dressing their town up like a Muppet Halloween special.
Katie gave one of the swinging ghosts another glance, and she shivered. The eyes, empty holes with nothing behind them, turned in her direction. It was looking into her soul. Her vision narrowed down until all she could see was the ghost. The ghost.
The ghost.
An image came to mind, rising up to replace the pleasant thoughts of her boyfriend and his naked flesh. It was a premonition. She didn’t know how she knew that, but she did. A foreboding sense of pain, in her hands and her fingers, so bad that they cramped into fists and her fingernails dug into her palms...
“Katie?”
She turned quickly, startled out of her thoughts and whatever menacing swirl of dark clouds had come over her. The street and the town and the world around her came back into sharp focus. It had taken a moment to recognize the man who had tapped her on the shoulder. Did she know him?
Yes. Of course, she did.
With a sigh of relief that she couldn’t quite suppress, she said a proper hello to Marlin McCandry. He was the biggest seller of antiques in Twilight Ridge, and a good friend of hers as well. When Katie said he was the biggest, she meant it both regarding sales and in terms of his waist size. His belly strained the elastic of his sweatpants and filled out the gray and black sweater underneath his windbreaker. His pudgy face sported a frizzy brown beard that was the same color as his hair.
“You looked kind of deep in thought there,” he said, a tentative smile curling up the corners of his mouth.
With his very thick New England accent, his vowels were tonal, and his r’s were soft, making that last word sound like ‘theih.’ Katie had learned to translate the English they spoke up here back to the English she was used to from out West. It wasn’t that hard, once you got used to it.
“Oh,” she said, realizing she hadn’t answered him yet. “Um, yes. Sorry. I guess I was thinking about Halloween and all that.”
“Ayup,” Marlin said, pointing up at the ghost fluttering in its sheet. “Kind of hard not to, I suppose. Not the way our illustrious mayor has bedecked the town.”
“That’s true, but it’s not just that. There’s a Halloween party that we’re putting together for the Inn. You’ll be there, right? I mean, sure our guests are trying to record a live special for their blog at the Heritage Inn.” Katie shrugged. “They think they’re going to have the chance to record ghosts, seeing as how it’s All Hallow’s Eve and all. But the party will be fun, I promise.”
“Mmm. That Inn of yours does have a reputation, that’s for sure. Never, um...never much believed in ghosts, myself.”
Katie studied his expression and the way his prominent Adam’s apple bobbed in a hard swallow. He was lying. Or at least, he was lying to himself. “Come on now, Marlin. Everyone believes in ghosts. Even if it’s just a little bit.”
It was not a warm day. It was comfortable for the end of October, but the skies were gray, and the wind held a chill to it that promised the snow might be right around the corner. Not cold. Just seasonal. Considering that was the case, the sweat that popped up on Marlin’s forehead was very out of place.
He was nervous, and Katie had to wonder why.
Marlin must have seen the question in her eyes. He nodded his head hard enough to make his jowls jiggle under his beard. “Meet me over at my shop, if you would? I believe I have something I’d like to show you.”
“Sure Marlin. Anything for a friend.”
“Glad to know I have friends in this town, sure enough,” he told her. “Sometimes you have to wonder in a small place like this if everyone is more interested in their own troubles than in everyone else’s.”
“Trouble?” Katie asked, confused. “What kind of trouble are you having, Marlin?”
He answered with a smile, but his eyes shifted like he was looking for something that was lurking in the shadows. “Not here,” he said. “At my shop. Might be easier to talk about it then. Tell you what, I can have some maple sundaes waiting for us, how’s that sound?”
Katie thought that sounded perfect. “I’ve always got time for ice cream, Marlin. I’ll see you there.”
Marlin nodded and made his way up the street. All around them, the ghosts watched them go.
Chapter 2
There were a few other small errands that Katie had to attend to. The post office had been holding her mail for two days now because Twilight Ridge didn’t have a mailman to make deliveries, and Mable the clerk was getting really testy about it. The woman she got her locally made jam from needed to be paid. There were a few other stops as well, just little things here and there, and then she was able to make her way to Marlin’s.
His antique shop was built as an addition at the back of Marlin’s house. He didn’t advertise because he didn’t appreciate foot traffic from tourists antiquing up and down the New England coast. He sold high-end antiques, not junk, and he sold almost exclusively by appointment. On his shelves, and tastefully arrayed on the sales floor, were items that used to belong to historical figures, as well as hard to find pieces of Americana. Most of it was interesting and obviously expensive.
From the front, Marlin’s house was a two-story ranch style with green siding and white trim. The shop addition on the back did not match the front at all. The vinyl siding was a plain gray, with a garage-style overhead door that had a regular man door section when it was closed like it was now. She used to knock before entering, but Marlin had convinced her that friends didn’t need to knock. So instead, she just walked right in.
The items inside changed on a regular basis, but the overall layout stayed
the same. Furniture was everywhere, stacked tightly together but in such a way to display each in the best light possible. Big, small, and every shape and size in between. Everything a diehard antiquer could ever hope for. The overhead LED lights were bright. He’d explained to her once that fluorescent light could break down old paper and destroy oil paintings. He stopped the aging process of his inventory by using the latest LED technology.
He also had insurance on everything in the neighborhood of a million dollars in case of theft or fire.
Toward the back of the store was a glass counter that locked from behind, where Marlin displayed jewelry and really expensive pieces like coins and paper documents. That was where he was sitting now, staring blankly at some middle point in front of his face. She was almost standing in front of him before he blinked and put on a smile for her.
“Well, there ya are.”
He faltered as if he’d meant to say more but just couldn’t remember what. Then he blinked and looked down at the countertop where he had two maple sundaes waiting, whipped cream and chopped nuts and a cherry on top. He pushed one of them across the glass counter to her. “There ya go.”
She’d never seen him so upset. He was always a happy-go-lucky sort, quick with a joke and happy to see a potential customer. Now there was obviously something weighing on his mind. She took the sundae he offered and scooped up a spoonful to put in her mouth. “Mmm, this is good,” she said, just to get the conversation started. “Did you make this yourself?”
“Sure did,” he nodded. “Make the maple sauce all by myself. Not the ice cream, of course. Have to get that from our little store on Main Street. Not the best stuff, I suppose, but can’t exactly be choosy. Not when you’re in a town so far off the beaten track.”
He took his own sundae and ate some, but it was just to give himself something to do like he was avoiding some subject he just couldn’t bring himself to say aloud.
“Marlin, is everything all right? You said you had something you wanted to show me?”
Regarding his sundae with a frown now, he put it down and pushed it away. “I did, sure enough. See, I take in all sorts of things to sell here in my shop. Well, I suppose you know that, of course, seeing as how you’ve been a good customer of mine, as well as a friend.”
Katie set her sundae aside now, too. “I am your friend, Marlin. You can count on me for anything. Did something happen to you? Are you in some kind of trouble?”
“Uh, it’s a little hard to explain, I’m sure.” With one finger, he scratched at the side of his neck. “Maybe it’s better if I just show you.”
Marlin took a key off its hook behind the counter and opened the glass case. Then he replaced the key and picked up a red handkerchief. Reaching inside the case with it, he found a single item from among the pocket watches, tarnished lapel pins, pearl earrings, and 1700s era bank notes in plastic sleeves.
When he brought his hand up again, it was holding a brooch nestled in the red cloth. One of those old style ones with an ivory carving of a woman pictured from the waist up, wearing a flowing dress, one hand folded demurely at her breast. It looked old. Very, very old, in fact. Maybe that was why he handled it with the handkerchief instead of with his bare hands. He must want to keep it free from smudges and fingerprints so it would maintain its highest value.
It was beautiful.
“What do ya think of that one there?” he asked her.
Katie was no judge of antiques. She knew what she liked and back when she bought and flipped houses for a very lucrative income, she’d picked up quite a few interior decorating tips, but jewelry? She hardly ever wore any herself, let alone give her opinion on someone else’s.
“It’s nice, I guess,” she said, reaching for the brooch. It was at least two inches tall, and half as wide, with a scalloped edge all around. The shell caught the lights from above. The ivory had yellowed with age. “I mean, it’s pretty. I’m sure there are women who could make this work, but it’s not really my style...”
She stopped talking as she picked the brooch up, and was transported from Marlin’s antique shop to another place.
It was an odd thing, to have your consciousness so completely taken over. Katie was--well, not used to this sort of thing, but somewhat less unhinged by it than she used to be. She didn’t consider herself a psychic. She didn’t want to be any sort of medium or ghost whisperer. In Katie’s mind, she was just a normal girl who had very un-normal things happen to her.
Like being sucked into moments of time that she had never been a part of.
Around her, out of the darkness, lights faded into being. Rows of them, trapped behind glass bulbs suspended from the walls on either side of a hallway. Dark paneling did its best to soak up the illumination. A heavy plush carpet soaked up the sound of her footsteps. In fact, it absorbed every single sound. Wherever she was, no one would hear her scream if it came to that.
She really wished she hadn’t just thought that. When visions like this one came to her, it was very rarely to show her a happy moment.
She moved without really having a destination in mind. For a moment she wasn’t sure if she was actually walking or if the vision itself was moving around her. This felt like someone else’s memory, and not hers. She could see it all, but it was like she was detached from it at the same time.
Halfway down the hallway on the left, there was a full-length mirror suspended on the wall between two of the lamps. She moved toward it, helpless to do anything else.
When she looked into it, she expected to see herself, in her brown khaki pants and her favorite purple sweater, her long raven-black hair, and her hazel eyes. She was a very attractive woman, or so her boyfriend--and others--had told her.
The woman looking back at her from the other side of the mirror was pretty in her own right, but it wasn’t her.
She had red hair cut at the level of her chin with a flirtatious purple streak chalked straight down the right side. Her skin was much darker than Katie’s fair complexion. Her jaw was more angular. Her ears were lower.
Her eyes were wide with terror.
“Help me,” the woman in the mirror begged, plain and clear. “Help me, please.”
The words came from Katie’s own lips. In the vision, it wasn’t her that she heard speaking, it was this other woman.
Pleading to be saved.
The brooch slipped from her numb fingers and clattered against the display case. A momentary disorientation swept through her and then faded away as quickly as it had started. She was back in Marlin’s shop, with Marlin sitting in his chair and watching her with obvious concern.
“It happened to you, too?” he asked, his expression torn between relief and surprise. “So, it’s not just me. I was worried that maybe I’d done gone and lost my mind.”
“You haven’t lost it,” Katie promised him. “I saw it, too.”
Chapter 3
“All that?” Marlin asked her, his accent thickening deeper as he listened to her telling her story. “You got all that from just holding that thing? I’d say it’s almost like you’ve done this before,” he mused.
Befoh, is how he said it, scratching at his neck again, eying her as if he’d never seen her before in his life.
Katie understood where that came from. She’d unloaded a lot on him, talking about herself. She didn’t like telling people about what she could do. Not at all. She didn’t like them to know that she could see ghosts or get these whacked out visions. Riley knew all about her, of course, but he could see ghosts the same as her. It had been easy to tell him about it.
Telling Marlin had been an exercise in bravery for her.
Typically when other people got even the faintest sense of this secret part of her life, they began treating her different. They found sudden excuses not to be around her, losing her phone number, that sort of thing. She had the feeling that Marlin was going to be different. After all, he’d asked to show her this brooch after something had happened to him.
“What d
id you see?” she asked him. “When you touch this, what do you see?”
“Well, I don’t exactly see a thing,” he shrugged. “I just get the sense of something crawling over my grave, if you know what I mean. Just the sense that someone was watching me over my shoulder. Like a...well, I kind of hate to say the word out loud.”
“Like a ghost,” Katie said for him. She had no problem saying it, no matter how much it gave her the creeps. It was a fact of life that ghosts did indeed exist.
“Ayup,” Marlin said quietly. He gestured at the brooch helplessly. “Katie, this is all insane. Just don’t know what to do. I heard you talking about the ghost hunters in your Inn, and I know you believe in all that guff. Thought maybe you could help me with this. Didn’t mean to upset you.”
“I’m not upset, Marlin,” she assured him. She didn’t go so far as to tell him that she’d had similar experiences in the past. The things she’d done could fill novels with ghost stories to keep anyone up at night. She still wanted to keep that to herself, even if she was pretty sure now that ship had sailed.
Maybe it was just time for her to accept that she was, at the very least, always going to be around ghosts. She was always going to be this way. Sensitive to the other side. To death, and to ghosts...
The brooch was haunted. Someone’s spirit had attached to this little piece of jewelry.
“Where did you get this?” she asked, looking down at the brooch where it lay, but not daring to pick it up again.
“From an estate sale,” he explained. “I go to auctions regularly to bid on lots of jewelry and other things, hoping to find a gem there among the junk. Throw most of it away, in the end. The good pieces find their way here. This brooch was in a box of things I bought at a blind sale in New Hartford a week back. Kind of bought into it without looking it over first.”
“You mean,” she said with a knowing smile, “you bought it sight unseen.”
Sight Unseen Complete Series Box Set Page 72