A Paranormal Easter: 14 Paranormal & Fantasy Romance Novellas

by Tiffany Carby

  Still silence.

  Now the woman rubbed her hands together in a nervous frenzy. Her delicate, pale hands looked chapped, sore, and downright painful. Her dirty fingernails were jagged and broken. She could not allow the poor woman to remain covered in filth. A bath was in order, but because she was skittish, Micki wasn’t sure how to approach it. Still, it had to be done. She could not sit on a hard kitchen chair all day, and as sympathetic as Micki was to her situation, she could not allow her home and furnishings to be destroyed by dirt and mud.

  “I know you are afraid and you are not ready to talk yet,” Micki began. “But…you are so cold and muddy that you need to take a nice warm bath. I can help you. Afterward, you can put on pajamas, have something more to drink and maybe something to eat, and then you can sleep. After a nice nap I am sure your mind will clear, and you might be ready to talk then.”

  More silence.

  Micki touched the woman’s arm, pleased that she didn’t flinch.

  “I will start the bath for you now. You stay here and relax.”

  Micki walked to the bathroom and turned on the taps. At once, warm water rushed into the porcelain bathtub. As it filled, she set out a fluffy pink bath towel, and placed the rose scented soap and shampoo in easy reach.

  It was still mind boggling that a woman was trapped…or hiding in a damaged crypt. Well, she couldn’t have been there long. She had walked through the small graveyard the day before, like she did every day to be sure it was in good order. The crypt might have been fragile but was not damaged until the mighty storm during the night.

  Micki knelt on the bath mat next to the tub and tested the water. It was pleasantly warm to the touch.

  She then had a disturbing thought.

  Could the woman have been trapped for an extended period inside the crypt? A few days, perhaps…or maybe even decades? Her clothing did look from another era, and her dress was so fragile and brittle, like it sat forgotten for many, many years.

  Like a doll hidden at the back of a very high and dusty shelf, out of sight and out of mind. Forgotten.

  The woman really did look like a porcelain doll with her alabaster skin and big, seemingly unblinking blue eyes.

  Impossible!

  She turned off the taps, got to her feet, and dried her hands on a towel. Before she walked back to the kitchen, she stopped at the large sitting room window and peered out at the graveyard. The rain had stopped now, and the sun was trying to force itself through the thick cloud cover. Micki placed her hand on the window, the cold seeped its way through her skin.

  Once again, she considered the woman in the kitchen being something “otherworldly.” She would never admit it to anyone, but from this very window, she witnessed several extraordinary occurrences in the graveyard. Streaks of bright colors. Faint music playing. Even garbled voices speaking in the darkness. So, maybe it wasn’t so far-fetched that the woman was somehow, someway, suspended in time inside the crypt.

  The woman.

  She sat in the exact spot Micki left her at the kitchen table; still wide-eyed, her hands clenched on her lap.

  Micki held out her hand. “The bathtub is ready now. Will you come with me?” She spoke gently.

  The woman only stared at Micki’s outstretched hand.

  “Please. You will feel so much better with all that dirt and mud washed off your hair and skin.”

  The woman tentatively reached for Micki’s hand, then pulled back at the last second. She continued to hold out her hand until the woman finally grasped it, and Micki helped her to her feet. The woman was so frail and brittle, she could barely walk. Micki walked very slowly, and encouraged her along, prepared to catch her if she started to fall

  The woman’s eyes, which were already large and blue, grew bigger as she looked around the sitting room. It was as though she never saw a television or a computer, or even a telephone.

  “There’s nothing to fear here. Everything is safe and helpful. Do not worry or even think about it now,” Micki said as she guided her into the bathroom.

  “Would you like me to stay with you and help you with your bath? Or would you prefer I leave?”

  “Stay.” The woman mouthed the word without uttering even a teeny sound.

  Still, this was progress.

  “Shall we remove your dress? It is so ruined. I will put it in the trash if that is okay with you. I have lots of clothing, and I’m sure I have things that will fit you.”

  The woman nodded.

  Again, progress. She was becoming more cognizant of herself and her surroundings.

  Micki went clinically about removing the woman’s dress. Beneath were undergarments she never saw before in any store or magazine advertisement. If she didn’t know better, she would believe it was Halloween, and this woman was dressed for a party as some type of late nineteenth or turn of the twentieth century character.

  The woman stood, blushing furiously, and trembling head to toes.

  “It’s okay, I promise. No one will hurt you,” Micki soothed the frightened woman.

  Taking her hand, Micki led her to the bathtub. “I’ll hold your arm, and you step inside. It is only warm, it won’t burn you.” To show the woman she was truthful, Micki submerged her own hand into the water, and swirled it a bit.

  It was nothing short of a miracle to get the woman into the bathtub without them both falling in. The hardest part was yet to come – get the woman safely out of the bathtub. Right now, Micki couldn’t worry much about that. She reached for a pink wash cloth and dunked it under the water, and then soaped it. As she did, the soap released a fragrant burst of rose.

  “This is such a lovely smell,” Micki sighed, as she began to soap the woman’s face, arms, legs, and torso, concentrating on her dirt caked fingernails until they were clean. Very pale, but clean. She washed her hair and tried not to notice the woman gasping in fear.

  Did she really think Micki would drown her? It was becoming more and more obvious that someone severely abused this woman. The thought made Micki’s heart hurt.

  As she rinsed her hair, the bathtub water became a mud bath.

  “I am going to drain this water and refill the bath tub. Is that okay?” She asked.

  She didn’t expect an answer, but the woman nodded.

  Micki pulled the plug, and the water drained. As it did, she was at a loss for words. The woman simply would not speak beyond a nod or silently mouthing a word. It was a bit unnerving, bathing a stranger. Yet, Micki sensed the woman was lovely and sweet. She didn’t know how she knew this; it was more of a vibe radiating from her.

  When the last of the dirty water swirled like a tiny tornado down the drain, Micki replugged and turned on the taps. At once, the woman recoiled and drew her knees to her chest.

  Micki held her hand beneath the tap, in the stream of water. “It’s warm water, see?” She smiled and reached for a glass apothecary jar filled with a rainbow of bath crystals. “You will like this, I promise.” She dug into the crystals with the glass scoop and poured them into the water. At once, it foamed into a sweet-smelling rainbow of bubbles and suds. “Isn’t that pretty?”

  The woman reached out and ran her fingers through the bubbles, her expression one of wonderment. She even rewarded Micki with a soft, closed mouthed smile.

  Micki dipped the pink wash cloth into the cloudy, fragrant water, squeezed out the excess, and began to rinse woman’s skin and hair. Now it was time to get her from the tub without them both falling.

  She stood, reached for the pink fluffy bath towel, and held it out. “Do you think you could stand and step out of the bath tub with me helping you? I won’t let you fall.”

  The woman reached both arms out to Micki, her eyes so big and blue. She was wonderfully child-like. Micki bent her knees and planted her feet firmly against the floor next to the bath tub to stabilize herself. Grasping the woman beneath her arms, with one mighty heave, pulled the woman to her feet. She held the woman’s warm body against hers and took a moment to rest a
nd catch her breath. Finally, she guided the woman from the bathtub, and wound the towel around her torso.

  She led her into the bedroom and motioned for the woman to sit at the edge of the bed. Micki opened a drawer, and removed a set of pajamas with cute, tiny bunnies covering the soft cotton fabric.

  “Isn’t this adorable?” She showed the woman the pajamas.

  As expected, she didn’t answer, but she did rub her fingers over the fabric.

  “Shall I help you to dress? You can then get into bed, and I will bring you a bowl of porridge and a cup of tea. After you eat, you can take a nice, long sleep. How does that sound?”

  Micki didn’t wait for a reply. One was likely to not come. She went about shaking the creases from the pajama top, and gently eased the bath towel from the woman’s torso. At once, her bony shoulders hunched, and her hair fell over her small breasts. The woman was shy and certainly fearful to not only be in a stranger’s home, but to be naked and vulnerable as well.

  It was best to get her dressed as quick as possible, and to dry her hair. Afterward, Micki could stack the pillows and get her comfortable in bed and beneath the blankets.

  Micki went about dressing the woman. It was reminiscent of dressing a doll, moving one arm and then another, and doing up the buttons. One leg, and the other leg, and she was dressed. She added woolen socks to keep her feet warm. The last step was to smooth a bit of hand cream onto the woman’s chapped hands, and a quick file of her fingernails.

  She rifled through the top drawer of her vanity, removed and plugged in the hair dryer to the electrical socket. Hitting the on switch, the dryer roared to life. The woman shrieked in response, and practically jumped out the bed. Micki fumbled for the off switch, shaken herself over the woman’s extreme reaction to the hair dryer.

  It was a simple hair dryer, no louder than any other. Had she never in her life seen or heard a hair dryer? Impossible! It was the twenty-first century. Her brain issued a loud, clear warning that this woman was not like her, not like others. She was different, and not just an eccentric sort of human, but of another time or another world, or both.

  Micki shook off the intrusive thought. The most likely scenario was the woman was held captive somewhere for a lengthy period, and her mental fitness was now challenged. The other scenario was she possibly suffered a head injury. Still, neither scenario explained her antiquated clothing that disintegrated with a mere touch.

  Micki rolled her shoulders and strode up to the woman balled into a fetal position on the bed. Micki sat beside her and stroked her wet hair.

  “It is okay. I told you that you are safe now. Nothing in this cottage will hurt you. Watch this.” She reached for the hair dryer and held it before the woman’s vision. “It is a little machine that makes warm air. It is meant to dry your hair. Watch me.”

  The dryer whirled to life once more, and Micki went about drying her own hair, still wet from the rainstorm. The woman watched, a curious gleam in her big blue eyes. She sat up again, seemingly now fascinated that the odd machine did not bite or expel bullets. Micki held the dryer at a distance and blew a little warm air on the woman’s arm. She shivered all over, but no longer panicked.

  “Can I dry your hair now? You can say no.”

  Tentatively, the woman sat up and wrung her hands together.

  It was best to get the job done, and not make any bigger of a deal of it than it already had become. Micki hummed a little as she dried the woman’s hair, careful not to get the dryer too close to her skin. Likely, she would think she was being burned alive if the dryer air got too hot.

  To Micki’s amazement, as the woman’s hair dried, it took on an incredible shade of honey blonde from root to tip. She set the dryer aside, grabbed a hair brush, and began to brush her hair, careful not to pull or tug on the knots that remained.

  Micki couldn’t help but sigh after she set the hairbrush aside. Although she was painfully thin, the woman was beautiful, from her hair, her eyes, and her incredibly pale skin. She now really appeared to be a doll. Or maybe a princess in an old picture book, or a woman portrayed by the Old Masters in their paintings that hung behind velvet ropes in the finest museums. She reached for the pearl handled hand mirror on her vanity and held it before the woman’s face.

  “Look how beautiful you are! You’re as stunning as a princess.”

  Micki broke her reverie and set the mirror aside. She stood, stacked the pillows and adjusted the sheet and blankets. “Come now and get comfortable under the blankets. It is time to have something to eat and rest. When you wake later, I’m certain your mind will be a lot clearer.

  The woman obeyed at once, and Micki tucked her in to bed. “I will be back with tea and porridge. I will only be in the kitchen. You rest now.”

  As the porridge cooked on the stove top, and the tea bag steeped in the cup, Micki put the woman’s tattered dress into a trash bag. A quick damp mop of the kitchen floor erased her muddy boot prints and the woman’s tiny, muddy footprints. When the hardwood once again shined, she cleaned the sponge mop.

  She needed to take a quick look in on the woman. In bed, she was sound asleep. She lay on her side, eyes closed, with her hands near her face. Micki would not wake her, she needed to sleep deeply after whatever horrible ordeal she suffered. She tiptoed from the bedroom and back to the kitchen. Turning the stove to off, she set the steaming porridge to the back of the stove. She would clean the pot later after it cooled.

  A weariness crept over her. It must have been the unsettled night with the constant vicious cycle of wake-and-sleep from the pounding thunderstorms, combined with the shock of discovering the woman hiding in the broken crypt. Still, this was an overall tiredness that Micki reckoned to a person not sleeping for several days or more, an incredible heaviness. She needed to sleep, even if only an hour. First, she’d have a quick shower.

  As quiet as she could manage, she showered and entered the bedroom. The woman was in the same position as she left her earlier, and still deeply asleep. Micki opened the dresser drawer inch by inch to silence the squeaky noises it always made. She grabbed a pair of pajamas like the pajamas the woman in her bed now wore, except Micki’s had cute little pastel kittens covering the soft cotton.

  In the sitting room, she patted the pillows on the overstuffed sofa and climbed on. Reaching for the patchwork quilt she handmade herself, she cocooned herself within it. It was chilly in the cottage, but she was far too tired to start a fire in the stone fireplace. She blinked slowly a few more times and relaxed into sleep.

  Micki wasn’t sure how much time had passed when she woke. A sliver of bright light shone through the slightly parted drapes.

  Sunshine.

  Maybe spring finally arrived. Easter was soon to follow.

  An odd tingle started from her toes and rose up her legs, spine and settled on her cheeks. She wasn’t alone. Her tired eyes shifted, and the woman from the broken crypt came into focus. She stood a mere few feet away.

  A living doll was the first thought that crossed Micki’s mind. The long, honey blonde hair, the big blue eyes that started contemplatively at her, the exquisite pale skin, and even the sweet bunny pajamas were definitely doll-like. She was simply radiant. A far cry from the terrified, disheveled woman she had been only a few hours earlier.

  The odd, yet pleasant tingle now tickled her entire body.

  How long had she been standing there, watching her?

  Slowly, she sat up on the sofa, and the woman sat beside her. Her warm slender hand curled around Micki’s hand. A slow smile spread across the woman’s face. Micki stared again, but this time it wasn’t the woman’s beauty that riveted her. Two pointed fangs appeared in the woman’s smile. For a moment, Micki was sure her own heart stopped beating.

  Her eyes were playing tricks on her.

  The light in the sitting room was dim.

  She was beyond tired after being kept awake most of the night by the thunderstorms.

  Not to mention the shock of finding this young
woman hiding in a broken above ground crypt.

  Or maybe, she was simply dreaming.

  “I am Catherina Cabot,” the woman spoke in a slow, faint voice. “And…I’m back.”

  2

  It had to be a dream.

  Yet, right beside her on the overstuffed sofa, was the woman she found only a few hours earlier cowering inside the broken crypt. Holding Micki’s hand in hers, so incredibly warm and beautiful.

  Her mind insisted that she was no more than a lost girl; a beautiful woman who had suffered through some traumatic act. Her fangs nothing more than a false, but eerily real looking prosthetic, courtesy of cosmetic dentistry.

  But Micki’s heart…her heart now beat double time beneath her breast, whispered that the woman who called herself Catherina Cabot was something more…something much, much more. Special, and indeed, otherworldly.

  “Thank you for waking me.”

  Micki’s dark brows drew together. How odd. She didn’t wake Catherina, she herself was deeply asleep on the sofa. Unless she snored loudly or sleepwalked. Her cheeks heated. Both were equally mortifying.

  “I woke you? I didn’t mean to. You need your sleep.”

  “No, not now, silly girl,” she laughed lightly. It was a merry little laugh like tinkling bells. “I heard you singing in the graveyard. That was you, yes?”

  Now Micki really was confused. She often sang in the graveyard as she cleaned the gravestones and did the gardening. “Yes…I do sing sometimes. Have you been somewhere in the graveyard when I’ve been out and about?”

  “Don’t you understand, Micki? I have been asleep a very long time inside the crypt where I was banished and left to die. But I did not die. Your sweet singing woke me from my long slumber, and the blessed ferocity of the thunderstorm broke me from my prison.

  If Micki was confused only a minute before, now she was out of her mind…or still sleeping. “No, Catherina, I don’t understand what you are trying to tell me.”

  “You may call me Cate.”