"Don't you know?" Cara seemed perplexed. "I came for my family — my new family." She spoke proudly.
Rosie discerned something sinister in Cara's voice and her demeanor. She was too calm, too relaxed.
"Do you know what happened to your parents?" Though reluctant, Rosie felt compelled to ask.
The girl's stare suddenly turned ice-cold and her eyes, black — a shade of which Rosie had never seen before. The hue alone appeared other-worldly and indisputably menacing. The wind outside whistled and howled as the thunderstorm now resembled a category four hurricane. "They're gone forever and I have a new family now. Isn't that nice?"
"Cara… did you hurt them?" Rosie gulped as if swallowing her own fear.
"Who?" Cara slowly and methodically shifted her head from side to side before looking Rosie dead-set in the eyes again.
"You know who I mean. Your mom and dad; the kids at school," Rosie said.
Cara nodded with a smile. "I did it for you — for us."
"How could you?" Rosie asked her new friend, floored by the revelation. The howling wind sounded frighteningly sinister as it swept up everything in sight. Rosie glanced outside at the long wires swaying wildly between lampposts. They looked like at any moment they would snap away from the security of the metal poles and sizzle on the pavement.
"I took care of things," Cara replied rather casually. "I had no choice. Besides, they deserved it."
The smug look on the girl's face made Rosie seriously wonder if befriending the mysterious loner had been a dreadful mistake.
"Come with me." Cara extended a hand.
Rosie shook her head rapidly. "I… can't."
Cara frowned. "Why not? You are my sister. Don't you want to be with me?"
"You're not alive anymore. You're dead! I'm not going anywhere with you!"
Cara's expression revealed that she was seared by those words.
"Come with me!" A voice that sounded like that of a beast instead of a human roared.
"Mommy!" Rosie cried, backing as far away from the ghastly little girl as she could.
Mira and Bobby sprinted towards the bedroom. Mira was in front. The door opened the moment she arrived, then slammed shut in Bobby's face. Bobby tried shifting the knob, but it was locked. The door even seemed cemented to the frame.
Mira saw Cara near the center of the room. She looked the same as before except for her eyes and her skin once white as snow was now pale and pasty.
"Mommy!" She was happy to see Mira. "We're all together now," Cara said, still in the strange, guttural voice.
Mira saw Rosie standing on the other side of the room, clearly afraid.
"Come with me…" Cara told Mira. "You, me and Rosie can be together forever. Wouldn’t that be great?"
Mira was unsure of how to respond. She knew the danger before her. "That would be nice, Cara," she answered cautiously. "We love you so much."
Mira noticed the soft smile that covered the child's face. "Don't you love us too?"
Cara nodded. "Yes. Very much."
"Rosie wants to be a Vet when she grows up. She just adores animals. Someday, she'd like to get married and to be a good mother too. Wouldn't you want her to do those things?" Mira asked.
"Uh huh." Cara's voice lowered. "I wanted to be a doctor like you will be soon. I wanted to help sick people."
"I'm sorry, honey. I'm really sorry you didn't get that chance, but you love Rosie, don't you?"
Cara looked at Rosie and then at Mira again. She nodded. "Yes, I love Rosie. She's my best friend and my sister."
"Well, isn't love unselfish?" Mira proposed.
Cara raised an eyebrow.
"I mean… wouldn't you want Rosie to be able to grow up and do those things she would really like to do before she comes to be with you?"
Cara was thinking intently. "I guess I do."
"Then, if you love us like you say you do, you will allow me to raise Rosie so that she can become those nice things and then later on, we can come and join you. Do you understand?"
"But I want you both with me now. I don't have a family anymore. I am alone here."
Mira slowly approached her and reached for her tiny hand. It was ice cold to the touch. Rosie was horrified as she looked on, wondering if her mother had lost her mind.
"We are your family now, Cara, and you are not alone. There are other members of your family whom you never met that are eager for you to join them. They understand you, honey. They accept and love you like Rosie and I do. It doesn't matter anymore that your mom and dad didn't. That's over now. You have lots of family right here reaching out to you so that you can join them and be happy in the new place. Forgive your parents, then you will see the others who have been reaching out to you ever since that dreadful day when you crossed over."
Cara appeared confused. "I can't forgive them. I don't know how," she submitted.
Mira pointed to the child's heart. "Think of all the nice things they have done for you, even if there aren't that many things you can remember. The entire eleven years of your life could not have been all bad. Whatever little good you could recall, dwell on that and react with love. You can do it, honey."
Cara's mind was racing. She started to have flashbacks of countless scenes filled with hatred and cruelty, then one appeared where she saw herself sitting on her father's lap at two years old. He was hugging her and kissing her cheeks. She felt his warmth; smelled his cologne and saw his effervescent smile. Her mother walked over and playfully pinched her nose before leaning in and kissing it. It was the last time Cara remembered feeling loved.
Within the fond memory, she felt the love she had for them and in that instant, her spiritual eyes were opened. All around the room she saw people of all ages — even other children with huge, bright smiles on their faces reaching out to her with both hands. She knew they were all her relatives from generations before.
An elderly woman with a face as radiant as the sun stepped forward and embraced her. Cara instinctively knew that it was her great-grandmother. The woman's love for her was unmistakable.
Then another woman, decades younger, came forward and embraced her as well.
"I am Matilda," she said. "We are so happy that you can see us now. We love you so very much." Her smile was angelic.
Soon, the child's eyes returned to their normal hue and her skin no longer pale, held a brilliant glow.
Mira made her way across the room to Rosie and held her. They both knew that Cara had finally found it inside her heart to forgive the people who had tragically failed her — her very own parents. The pain they inflicted upon her was now replaced by the unconditional love of others she never knew.
"I will see you later," Cara said, looking their way. "I want Rosie to become everything she wants to and I want you there for her," she told Mira.
With the darkness now replaced by an ethereal, luminous light, the rain soon slowed to a drizzle and dark clouds quickly dispersed. Surrounded by her great-grandmother, Matilda and the others, Cara looked at Mira and Rosie and waved a final goodbye. Shortly thereafter, they all vanished and youthful giggles along with carefree laughter echoed behind them.
A moment later, Bobby barged into the room.
"What happened?" he demanded in a frenzy. His incessant pounding on the door had been drowned out by the unfolding scene inside the room.
Tickled by how worked up he was, Mira and Rosie went over and hugged him.
"So nobody's gonna tell me what happened?" He was irritated.
"Cara is now at peace," Mira replied. "She's gone."
Bobby breathed a huge sigh of relief as his eyes beheld the Straptopuluses' house from the comfort of his home. For a moment, he could have sworn he saw two people looking out of a window from the second floor.
THE END
Book 4 in The Cornelius Saga
Is Here!
Get book ONE in the Cornelius Saga
SEE HOW IT ALL BEGAN!
The Plot:
Forbidden ro
mance
Betrayal
A brutal history
An unexpected visitor
Paranormal Activity
Welcome to the strange world of the Cullen family.
Buy Cornelius HERE.
Review excerpt from Revenge of Cornelius by Mallory Heart Reviews:
Emotionally stunning paranormal
"Now this author rocks. I read CORNELIUS last evening, and immediately followed it with the sequel, REVENGE OF CORNELIUS, today. Hmmhmmhmm. Tanya Taylor knows how to elicit readers' emotions and make our heartstrings both thrum like a harp and weep bitter tears. Following the first book, in which a yearning ghost from slavery times appears to a young girl, asking for help to find her missing love, the ghost's killer reawakens to brutally haunt and terrorize a young black family who have purchased and renovated his long-abandoned plantation house. I found my emotional range stretched in multiple directions by these two books…"
Each book in the Cornelius Saga is a stand-alone.
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OTHER FICTION TITLES BY THIS AUTHOR
10 Minutes before Sleeping
INFESTATION: A Small Town Nightmare (The Complete Series)
Real Illusions: The Awakening
Real Illusions II: REBIRTH
Real Illusions III: BONE OF MY BONE
Real Illusions IV: WAR ZONE
Cornelius (Book 1 in the Cornelius saga.)
Revenge of Cornelius (Book 2 in the Cornelius saga.
Each book in this series is a stand-alone.)
We See No Evil (Book 4 in the Cornelius saga.)
The Haunting of MERCI HOSPITAL (Some patients never leave…)
Hidden Sins Revealed (A Shocking Serial-Killer Thriller)
Multiple times #1 bestseller on Amazon UK, Amazon.com and a recent #1 bestseller at Amazon Canada.
EVIL LURKS IN THE MOST UNLIKELY PLACES.
Can this town be saved or will it go straight to Hell?
(A Religious Thriller)
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Released February 25, 2017!
Never push a woman to her limit when all she knows is pain.
10 Minutes before Sleeping is a powerful story of a young woman named Eva left on the doorstep of a neighbor as a child by her very own mother. She is abused, neglected, rejected and without a legal footing in the only place she knows as “home”. All the odds appear to be stacked against her and those looking from the outside in seriously wonder how one human being could be expected to battle such atrocities without making a fateful decision to end it all far quicker than it ever began.
As a young girl, Eva struggles to obtain an education at the resistance of a woman who was left with the responsibility to raise her, but years later finally finds what she believes is true love. This event, ironically, progresses to a further downward spiral that costs this young woman her three most precious gifts in the world, thus evoking a snap decision that occurs ten minutes before sleeping. DON’T MISS THIS POIGNANT NOVEL.
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Released April 2017!
The HAUNTING of Merci Hospital
No one expects to visit a hospital for a non-threatening injury only to never leave again. Merci Hospital, one of the oldest in the county, has served countless patients for practically decades. However, something is now very odd about the place as some who are admitted report seeing things that are not there and others never get to talk about it.
Catherine Lucene is fairly new at Merci, a highly regarded nurse whose reputation for excellence and compassion in healthcare precedes her. She gradually becomes aware of the inexplicably sinister happenings at the hospital, but the underlying cause of it all evades her. Will Catherine's determination to uncover the truth help preserve the lives of those not yet lost—including her own—or will her curiosity of the "unknown" propel her into a horrifying state-of-being she never knew existed?
GET THE HAUNTING OF MERCI HOSPITAL HERE!
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Cara (The Cornelius Saga Book 3) Page 7