Sucking in a sharp breath, he gazed at me wide-eyed. “Spine tingling is really a thing.”
I chuckled. “Yeah, I guess. And if I really wanted you to, I could even do this.”
I closed my eyes and for just a brief moment, I opened myself to him, letting him take a peek inside my soul. I wasn’t careful with my thoughts, I only let him linger for half a second, but I knew he’d seen something when the tremors rocked through him.
“Wow,” he breathed, looking at me now in a way I’d not seen a man look at me in a long, long time. With awe. Wonder.
“That was...”
“My cue to leave,” I grinned and floated out of there as quick as I could, not bothering to look back.
Dante Martin
I SAT ON THE EDGE OF my bed, every fine hair on my body standing on edge as though I’d been electrocuted, and wondered what in the heck it was that I’d just seen.
No, I hadn’t been able to touch Annabelle. Not in the physical sense, but I had touched her. When she’d moved her hand on mine it’d been like holding lightning, but that thing she’d done after...
I blinked, recalling with perfect clarity the madness of colors and sounds of chaos and a life lived. But above all that, one image had floated to the very top of my mind.
The worried face of a strange woman bending over Annabelle as darkness and pain had converged.
I shivered, feeling faintly dirty. But not because of touching Annabelle, moreso because that had been Annabelle’s overriding emotion herself. Whatever that had been, the imprint of it had been a powerful one for her. And I found myself wanting to know more. A lot more.
The ghost had suddenly become far more interesting than just a passing curiosity to me. Hopping up, I started for the dresser so I could grab some clean clothes when my ankle twinged, causing me to trip. I managed to regain my balance before I fell, but I was distracted by the sudden flight of my family’s picture flying off the dresser.
I sucked in a sharp breath when it banged against the wall, instantly shattering the glass into hundreds of sharp pieces. I stopped moving, gaze circling the room as my heart tripped violently within me.
The room grew instantly cold, and frost burned from my lips with my breath. Goose bumps dotted my flesh, and I frowned.
“Annabelle? That you?”
No answer, and I doubted she’d have done that anyway.
Already the cold was dissipating and I found myself confused. Had my trip caused the picture to fall somehow? Had I banged into the dresser without realizing it?
“No,” I shook my head, feeling crazy and off kilter.
I lived in a house with two ghosts. Of course weird things were bound to happen. But still...
With one final glance around, I took my clothes and made for the bathroom, determined to ignore whatever this had been for the rest of the evening.
Chapter 6
Dante Martin
“TWO DAYS. TWO DAYS!” I said to my glaring twin who was currently shoveling donuts into her mouth at the kitchen table like there was no such thing as trans fatty acids.
I was going stir crazy in this place.
Blue had, of course, laughed at me when she’d learned I’d not only rolled my ankle trying to get away from what she called “Mr. Cuddlepants,” aka Wolf Spawn of Satan, but then had also fainted in front of Casper the Friendly Ghost.
After five days I could almost walk without a limp now, but my pride wasn’t taking the blow to my ego quite so well. I’d been punch drunk with exhaustion that night, and I squarely blamed my reaction to Annabelle Lee to driving on less than two hours of sleep over a two-day period and slamming back nothing but greasy gas station food, coffee, and energy drinks.
“Will you stop acting like a psycho boyfriend and just chill? I told you she’ll come back when she’s ready.”
I frowned. “What?” I scoffed. “Who said I was talking about Annabelle?”
I totally was. After the shower two days ago, I’d walked downstairs to find Annabelle staring outside the window with a worried look on her face, the warmth of earlier all but gone. And though I’d wanted her to stay, she’d whispered an apology and had vanished. Just like that.
Which sucked because the only thing that made this place bearable was her. She kept my mind occupied, and I wanted to know more about her. And since she’d still not returned, I found myself in my room connected to my laptop and scouring the web for any mention of her or her life before. I’d found some stuff, but not nearly enough.
“I’m just saying I’m going stir crazy in this place. I need a purpose, Blue, something to channel my frustrations into. That, or I’m gonna have to leave and get a job already. My savings is only an emergency stash, and I’m blowing through it so fast it’s giving me the shakes.”
“You spent all of two hundred bucks getting here, you cheapskate.”
I rolled my eyes. “Not the point.”
“Just chill, dude. Enjoy your breakfast. We can powwow after I’ve had my third cup of coffee. It’s too early for all this talk of money and plans.” She shuddered, and again it struck me just how different my sister and I were.
I tossed my arms wide. “I am cool! See, I’m cool. So cool. I need a job.”
“Yeah, I can totally tell,” she snapped before biting into another crueler and chomping down like a mad cow. “You’re just the epitome of cool right now.”
I rolled my eyes. “Why am I even here? You asked me to visit, I came, I saw.”
“So go.”
I stopped pacing the length of the tiny kitchen. The house was three levels, and all the rooms were small, but efficient. There wasn’t wasted space in this place. It was a classic and gorgeous example of a Victorian Gingerbread home, though Blue’s taste in décor could definitely use some help.
My sister wasn’t really one for getting fancy about anything. Curtains could be easily replaced with tie dye blankets, and rather than carefully selected Victorian inspired wall hangings there was a black velvet Jesus and paper poster taped up with the picture of a cat clinging upside by its claws with the words, “Don’t worry, be happy” written on it.
The kitchen was a hodgepodge of smoking lawn gnomes and terrible looking seventies-era china wear that’d definitely seen better days. It was a real shame what she’d done to this place. The aesthetics weren’t what they should be, and her lack of imagination was really taking away from the unbelievable original woodwork that littered the place.
In another life, back when I’d been idealistic and young—aka stupid—I’d been heavy into restoration. Not so much decorating, but the concept of bringing an old home back to its former glory. It’d been the one thing Mom and I had bonded over. Money had always been tight after Dad died, and because Blue would much rather hang in the park smoking with her emo friends, I’d become Mom’s yard sale buddy. She’d shown me how to pick up vintage items on the cheap and taught me a lot of what I knew about detail work and restorations. At fifteen I’d even briefly considered becoming a carpenter, until I’d realized there was no money in it. Frivolity was for the young. It was all well and good to dream, but there came a point when you had to grow up.
There were some really awesome pieces in here though. The kitchen boasted a potbellied stove that looked like it came straight out of the pioneer days and a mint green, top-freezer fridge that looked circa 1950s, if that.
Which was awesome, and though I wasn’t actively trying to, I was already thinking of some things that could be done in here. My ideas were rusty, mainly because I’d been too busy with numbers and the rat race to let my brain dream like this, but it was nice to know I hadn’t lost what had made Mom’s and my relationship unique to us. Though, neat as all this was, the kitchen was pretty much bare.
Blue had never been one for cooking. The fridge was almost completely empty except for a case of beer, gallon of juice, and milk. A couple of boxes of cereal in the cabinets were the extent of food options we had here.
It wasn’t that I exac
tly liked cooking, but I could swing it. I’d been forced to learn in college because of my strict diet at the time. A diet that I was letting slip by the wayside recently.
I’d spent almost every night eating out at the Golden Goose and becoming slowly acquainted with the rest of Blue Moon Bay’s very eclectic townspeople. Most of who, I was almost positive, couldn’t be human.
Zinnia was no doubt a witch, since I’d seen her flick and swish her wand in the kitchen and literally cause a plate of roast beef to magically appear in her hands. And I saw a little girl shift into an honest to God wolf—only this one had been far cuter than the demon one who’d tried to kill me. Thankfully it hadn’t reappeared after that first humiliating night.
Yeah, this place was full of otherworldly people. A part of me, a big part of me, wanted to yank my twin out of here. I didn’t like feeling like I was on the menu for half the residents here, and I really didn’t like that Blue spent most of her nights playing poker with a zombie and Big Foot. As in the Big Foot.
Two things that could literally eat her, and she didn’t seem to give two farts about it. Granted, neither of them looked like the monsters on TV, but still.
I groaned and shoved my hand through my hair, giving it a firm yank. Why was I still here again? I asked myself this same question at least ten times a day and still didn’t have a good answer, only that I was deeply reluctant to leave.
Like, every time I even thought about packing up my stuff, I suddenly broke out into a sweat and would need to sit down and catch my breath. I’d worry that it was my heart, except thankfully I’d had a physical last month and had been given a clean bill of health.
I glared at Blue who only glared back. She’d always been really good at cutting through my B.S.
“You know I can’t,” I said.
She rolled her lips. “I’m a big girl, Dany, I know how to take care of myself.”
“As capable as I know you to be, sister, I don’t think you grasp just what kind of town you’ve wound up in. This place is freaking weird, even for you, my flighty, flaky twin.”
“Hey!” she snapped, before taking a large swig of her still piping hot coffee. “You gonna eat that?” she asked, pointing to my ‘everything’ bagel and cream cheese she’d picked up for me at the bakery.
I curled my lip. “No, and you shouldn’t either.”
Wrinkling her nose, she snatched up the bagel and tore a chunk off. “It’s got poppy seeds, it’s healthy.”
“It’s carb central. I don’t know how you stay so skinny eating the way you do.”
“YOLO, dude,” she said, as she shoved yet more carby fats down her gullet. I cringed. It killed me to see my sister taking so little care of herself.
I growled. “It’s obvious to me you’re gonna die without my intervention. I’m gonna go grocery shopping. You need to learn to eat things other than the color brown.”
“Ew,” she shuddered. “None of that disgusting rabbit food.”
I shook my head. “Eating fruits and veggies wouldn’t kill you, B. God, you eat like an animal, at least chew first.”
Cheeks bulging, she looked at me with guileless blue eyes just like mine. The only bits of her and I that actually were identical.
“Wut?” she muttered with crumbs sticking to the corners of her mouth, before swiping at her face with her wrist. “I swear you’re worse than mom ever was.”
I rolled my eyes. “Whatever. I’ll be back. And maybe when I return you can be showered and we can see about heading into town for some nice things to decorate this place.”
“Jesus wept,” she sighed, before giving me a snappy salute. “Anything else, master mine?”
I grumbled. “We’re gonna clean this place today, too. FYI. You made me come here, and well, I’m not living in a pigsty. Clean up your bongs too. The place reeks.”
“Yes, daddy.”
“Blue,” I growled.
“Dad,” she growled right back.
With an exaggerated huff, I turned on my heel and winced a little when I stepped down too sharply on my bad ankle. Last thing I wanted to do was tweak it again.
Blue was right, I was in a terrible mood. And I knew why too.
I still had no job. Zero prospects out here. And every day that Annabelle Lee stayed away the more desperate I became to see her. Why couldn’t I stop thinking about her? I’d only seen her a handful of times, and briefly at that. She’d also not seen me at my shining best, but then I thought about her soft, pretty face and her sweet, husky voice and I found myself growing curious about her all over again.
Clenching my jaw I walked up the stairs to grab my wallet off the dresser. Ever since the incident with my picture, I wasn’t much of a fan of this room. Maybe Blue had lowered the thermostat suddenly and violently that day. I dunno. All I knew was that bone-chilling cold hadn’t happened again. I still didn’t like sleeping here, and if I weren’t convinced that Blue would mock me for it if I moved and call me a “chicken baby,” I would have left this room days ago.
I stayed on just the other side of the door, eyeing the sparse furnishings, waiting to see if there was anything in there.
First thing I’d done when Blue had shown me to my attic room was scrub the floors, strip the sheets off the bed and wash them, dust, and rearrange things.
There wasn’t much in the way of decorations up here on the third floor. Like whoever had first decorated this place had spent all their time and energy only on the first two floors and this place had simply become little more than an afterthought. There was a bed and a small dresser. No mirror. No nightstand. Not even a lamp, just a small light fixture on the wall.
Nothing moved inside, and I had slept in here just fine the past two nights. Taking a deep breath, I jogged through. I’d be quick and leave.
Taking up my wallet from the dresser, I tucked it into my back pocket and was turning to head out the door when suddenly it flew shut with a jarring bang. My pulse skittered so hard it skipped a beat.
I frowned. I wasn’t gonna freak out. This house was haunted. Fact. Maybe it was the demon dog? It wasn’t cold yet though, so maybe my ghost had finally come back.
“Annabelle, you there?” I asked, feeling kind of stupid for talking to thin air.
I waited several seconds, as hope stretched long fingers inside me. My shoulders slumped when she didn’t respond. I shook my head. Old houses were quirky. I knew that.
“You’re an idiot, Dante. She’s dead. A ghost. Not a mystery to unravel, you freak,” I growled, hating the fact that in my current jobless state I found myself becoming obsessed with just who Annabelle was really and why she found herself trapped here.
She’d died almost a hundred years ago, in front of this house under very mysterious circumstances. End of story, because that’s all there ever could be. I really needed to get out more. Attempt to make some friends. Something. Anything, so long as it took me away from this place for a little while.
Shaking my head I stalked toward the door and turned the knob. But the door held fast. It was stuck.
Foundations shifted. Doors got jammed. Not that unusual. I gave a good hard tug this time, bracing for it to pop open. But again, it didn’t budge.
I cocked my head, as the temperature in the room had suddenly dropped ten degrees in less than half a second. My skin broke out in a wash of goose bumps.
“Okay,” I hissed, “whoever’s doing this. Stop. This isn’t funny. I get it, you don’t like me or want me here. But I’m not going anywhere so you can just stop it!”
I glanced over my shoulder. But again, I saw no one. I really, really hoped this was Annabelle, but deep down I wasn’t feeling too good about it.
“Annabelle,” I whispered without turning, trying one last time, “this you?”
No reply, but then I hadn’t really expected one.
I tried tugging on the door again, but no dice. And the temperature was definitely still dropping. Steam was curling from my lips with my breaths and I shivered as the col
d sank deep into my bones now.
I blinked and shook my head. I’d kept my calm, but panic was definitely starting to set in now. Whatever this was, it wasn’t Annabelle.
Because the other night I’d felt warm, content when she’d touched me. Right now I was feeling the urge to run. I wasn’t generally a runner, believe it or not. I didn’t run away from my problems in life. But there was no fighting a ghost. That went so beyond what I understood.
“Annabelle, if you’re there, let me out of here.” I was seconds away from calling out to my sister, but I didn’t want to lose my head and then look like a fool after scaring her half to death. She’d never let me live that down.
Suddenly fear hammered at my skull, robbing me of thoughts as I saw dark black letters materialize on the wall in front of me. Looking like vague shadowy blurs at first, before they began to take shape.
G.
O.
A.
W.
A.
Y.
“Go away,” I mumbled, and then that black shadow gathered into a tight sphere and it flew like a missile dead at me. The shriek of its passing caused ice to skate down my spine and turned my blood into a river of it. I told myself to run, but it was like my feet were suddenly made of concrete. And though I moved away from the door and to the side, I wasn’t fast enough. A second later it struck true, piercing my chest and ripping through my heart.
My breath rattled as my pulse skittered out of control. Legs unable to bear my weight any longer I began to slowly dip lower. The wall was the only thing keeping me semi-upright. My knees were gelatin and I couldn’t feel my fingers or toes.
It hadn’t opened its thoughts to me the way Annabelle had, but I’d felt its fury and rage beat like a hammer at my skull. I was going to be sick. My stomach heaved.
A second later Blue was banging on my door. “Dante. Dante!” she screamed. “What was that noise?”
I could only croak out unintelligible nonsense. My throat was too tight to form anything proper and my thoughts too scattered to be coherent. The only thing I knew right now was the heavy blanket of terror still wrapped tightly around me.
Holly, Curses, and Hauntings Page 8