Teen Ghost at Dead Lake

by R. Barri Flowers

  That was the day Brooke died. Rachel's heart skipped a beat. She wondered if the watch belonged to her sister, though she had never seen it before. But why would the date have stopped working and not the other functions?

  She saw a button on the watch and pushed it to see what would happen. Old-fashioned music began to play. Rachel put the chain around her neck as though compelled to.

  The music somehow had a surreal effect on her. Lost in the tune, she started to sway with the music all but forgetting that her dad and Virginia were waiting to drive her to the bus station. And that Nana was expecting her.

  She felt herself grow slightly dizzy. Unsure what was happening or why, Rachel staggered, sure she would fall over at any moment and hit her head.

  But, just as quickly, the feeling disappeared and she was herself again. Rachel looked at the clockwatch and saw it had stopped ticking and the poker hand now stood still. The eerily pleasing music had also come to a screeching halt.

  She found that odd, just as she did everything about the antique watch.

  What just happened?

  Glancing around, Rachel saw something even more puzzling. The attic was not nearly as cluttered as it had been only moments before. How was that possible? It was almost as if she was in a different place and time. But, of course, that was ridiculous.

  She looked out the window. Even the sunny day had been replaced with a cloudy one. As she tried to make sense of it all, Rachel heard someone climbing the attic steps. For some reason she held her breath, still clutching the strange watch in her hand.

  Instead of seeing her father or Virginia standing there with annoyance, Rachel gulped as she watched an attractive, slender girl around her age with thick, long brown hair step into the attic. She was dressed in a tee and jeans and looked strangely familiar.

  Without fully comprehending the implausibility of it all, Rachel realized the resemblance was to that of her long dead sister, Brooke...

  * * *

  Read the entire DANGER IN TIME, available in print, eBook, and audio.

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  The following is an excerpt from R. Barri Flowers' Wizard of Wishes teen fantasy novel

  CHRISTMAS WISHES: Laura's Story

  Chapter One

  It was early December and I already had my top ten wishes for Christmas written down. Not that I expected all, if any, of my wishes to come true, since few had in recent memory. But a girl three months shy of sixteen could wish upon a star or two, couldn't she?

  I kept my wish list with me at all times, as if it would somehow bring me good luck. Or at least keep my life from becoming too bogged down with the norm or abnormal, depending on how you looked at it. I wasn't holding my breath, and definitely didn't believe in magical stars as the answer to my prayers and desires. But I was hoping that maybe somewhere between a shooting star and the spirit of Christmas, my nearly disastrous year could be salvaged.

  I took a break from babysitting and pulled out the list from the back pocket of my chinos. I studied it as if it had the answers to an upcoming exam at Cranbrook High, where I'd started tenth grade in September. Not that I didn't already know what was on the list—after all, I'd written it myself—but it somehow helped when I read the wishes out loud, which I'd put in reverse order of importance. Don't get me wrong. My wishes are all important. It's just that some mean more to me or are more attainable than others. I read the list aloud.

  10. I wish my brother Cody hadn't decided to go to graduate school on the other side of the country. Not that I wasn't happy for him. Well, sort of. But it's hard to be spoiled rotten by my older brother when he's like three thousand miles away.

  9. I wish my best friend, Saba Knight, hadn't moved to Alaska with her family a few months ago, leaving us to communicate almost entirely on our iPads in FaceTime. Though it beat texting by a mile, it was nothing like face-to-face sleepovers.

  8. I wish my parents didn't seem like they were on the verge of a bitter divorce, with numerous heated exchanges lately and my dad's shocking admission that he had an affair with a professor at the local college where he teaches sociology.

  7. I wish my Grandpa Victor wasn't slowly losing his mind to Alzheimer's disease, scaring my mom and me to death that pretty soon he wouldn't even recognize us.

  6. I wish my bratty kid brother, Ryan—who's eight, but acts more like he's four—would become less of an irritant and more like Saba's baby brother, Sean, who always seems to be on his best behavior.

  5. Speaking of irritants, I wish the five-year-old twins I babysit would grow up quickly instead of being little monsters!

  4. I wish I wasn't so tall for my age. I'm five-eight and a half in my bare feet and dwarf most of the sophomores at school, and many of the older boys, too. It makes it really hard to find a boyfriend whose head I don't have to look over when I'm talking to him.

  3. I wish the guy I like, Martin Walker—who is actually taller than me and a hottie—would notice me as more than just a tall girl to talk to about the cute shorter girls he likes and school stuff.

  2. I wish I had more meaningful goals in life than wanting a hot boyfriend and getting past high school without falling flat on my face.

  1. Last, but certainly not least, I wish this year would hurry up and end so I could see if any of my wishes were even close to coming true. Then I'd have something to look forward to. If not, then I'll just drift through next year like a zombie and wait till next December comes around for a new and improved Christmas wish list.

  I folded the paper and put it back in my pocket just as the twins I was babysitting, Mya and Tasia Henderson, started throwing food at each other. The ham sandwiches I'd made for them had turned into near lethal weapons. I wasn't sure if the food fight was due to boredom or if it was because they genuinely didn't seem to like each other very much.

  "Stop it, you two!" I said, raising my voice an octave.

  The twins seemed totally amused. And as stubborn as ever.

  "You can't make us stop," Tasia declared.

  The only reason I knew it was Tasia was because she had pigtails, whereas Mya's hair was pulled back into a long braid. Maybe that was their mother's way of telling them apart. Other than their hairstyles, they were identical twins, right down to their skinny arms and legs, and major attitude problem.

  As if not to be outdone by her sister, Mya yelled, "We can throw food 'cause it's fun!"

  I refused to allow them to turn my babysitting job into a joke, so that I ended up being fired and some other poor and desperate teenager was left to try to get them to behave. I decided to use psychology to keep the situation from getting totally out of hand.

  "All right, you two, if you don't stop, no ice cream or chocolate chip cookies for dessert."

  That got their attention.

  "What kind of ice cream?" Tasia asked.

  "Vanilla with little pieces of chocolate," I said, sensing the tide might be turning in my favor.

  "You have to give it to us!" Mya demanded.

  "Why should I?"

  "Because you're our babysitter and Momma will be mad at you if you don't."

  "No, she'll be mad at both of you when I tell her that you misbehaved," I said, feeling triumphant.

  "Did not," Tasia said.

  "Did too," I responded sharply, like I was five years old.

  Both of them pouted, but stopped the food slinging.

  I resisted a smile. "Now that's more like it. Help me clean up your mess and we'll pretend it didn't happen and have some ice cream and cookies. Deal?"

  The girls pondered the notion, caught between enjoying their wicked ways and a craving for some sweets. Finally, they said in unison, "Deal!"

  I'd succeeded in dodging one bullet, while waiting to see what else they would do to try and drive me up a wall.

  When Mrs. Henderson returned home that afternoon from her errands, the kitchen had been cleaned up and the twins were in the living room quietly watching cartoons.

  "Hi, everyone," Mrs. Henderson s
aid in a hoarse voice that sounded like she had a perpetual cold.

  "Hi, Mrs. Henderson," I said in a forced cheerful voice. The girls were too preoccupied with the TV to even utter a word.

  Mrs. Henderson was a widow, though only in her early forties. She worked part-time in a retail store and full-time as a mom, except when she needed a babysitter to fill in for her three times a week. That's where I came in. Though the twins were a handful, I needed the extra money for clothes, Christmas gifts, and other stuff.

  "You're a miracle worker, Laura," Mrs. Henderson told me. "I've never seen those two so well behaved. You must tell me what your secret is."

  I shrugged. "It's no big deal, really," I said believably. "The girls are a lot of fun. They aren't too difficult most of the time. When they are, you just have to ignore them and they straighten up in a hurry!"

  "Hmm," Mrs. Henderson said. "I'll have to try that strategy sometime."

  I grinned, while thinking: Good luck. You're going to need it for the bratty pair.

  * * *

  Home was a remodeled Victorian house with a wraparound porch and plenty of bay windows in Cranbrook, Oregon. The house was surrounded by spruce and maple trees. It had been my grandparents' house till we moved there three years ago to help out my grandfather after my grandmother died. At the time, Grandpa was still able to care for himself for the most part. Now he had become almost totally dependent on Mom and Dad and a nurse, which made me feel sad and helpless.

  I headed inside just as my big brother Cody was on his way out. He gave me one of his trademark crooked grins. "Hey, what's your hurry, girlie?"

  He had called me girlie ever since I can remember. I used to hate the name with a passion, but had gotten used to it to the point that I now liked being called girlie by him. Cody was twenty-two-years old and six feet, three inches tall. He had a shaved head and muscles everywhere you looked, due to his obsession with weightlifting. He had several girlfriends and couldn't seem to decide which one he liked the best.

  "No hurry," I said. I wanted to spend as much time with him as I could, knowing he only had a few weeks before he left for graduate school.

  "Good," he said. "I'm on my way to the store to pick up some things. Want to ride along?"

  It sounded good to me. "Maybe I should let Mom know I'm back from babysitting the feisty twins."

  "That's what your cell phone is for," Cody said. "Don't worry, I'll take the heat if Mom gets on your case for taking off with your favorite brother. But let's keep that last part between us. We wouldn't want Ryan to get jealous because I'm so much better looking or anything, would we?"

  I giggled, even though I wanted to be pissed at Cody for leaving town. And I had no problem with Ryan being my second favorite brother, as if he even cared. "No, we wouldn't," I said.

  Cody drove a red Mustang that he loved working on whenever he could, even when there was nothing to work on. We didn't say much at first during the drive; we just listened to music.

  Finally, I looked at Cody's profile and asked, pouting, "So why couldn't you have picked a college that was a lot closer?"

  "Because I couldn't find one that would offer me a fellowship and some extras thrown in," he said. "I can't expect Mom and Dad to foot the bill and I sure don't want to take out any more student loans than I already have. Otherwise I'll be paying them off till I'm as old as Gramps."

  That was a scary thought, but I couldn't resist letting off a bit more steam. "First Saba moves all the way to Alaska and now you're going to New York. It sucks. I mean, at least if you were going to college in Colorado, it would only be half the distance away. Then maybe I could come and visit you."

  Cody faced me and a smile played on his lips. "Hey, you can visit me in the Big Apple any time you like. I'm sure Saba feels the same way about Alaska. The truth is, girlie, we all go through changes in life. Some good, some bad. That's just the way it is. Doesn't mean it has to be the end of the world."

  "Yeah, but sometimes it feels that way," I moaned. I knew I was venting like a clingy younger sister, but I also knew I could get away with it with Cody.

  "I'll miss you, too," he said. "Let's save the tears till it's time to say goodbye. We've still got three weeks to hang out."

  "Yeah, sounds like a lifetime," I said, sneering at him.

  Cody put his arm around me, using his free hand to expertly control the steering wheel. "We can text each other and video chat all the time and catch up on the latest gossip around here...or there. Okay?"

  "Promise?"

  "Would I lie to my favorite little sister?"

  "You'd better not," I warned. "And I'm not that little anymore either!"

  "You can trust me," he said. "And you're right: you're not so little anymore. Not like our pipsqueak brother."

  "That's his problem," I said, grinning devilishly.

  Cody chuckled. "Yeah. For a few more years anyway. He'll probably outgrow me eventually. I'm glad we have some time left to get in each other's hair."

  "Uh, you don't have any hair, Cody," I reminded him.

  He ran a hand across his smooth head and made a funny face. "Guess I don't. But you've got enough for both of us."

  "I suppose." I ran a hand through my long locks just to prove the point.

  We pulled into the parking lot of the Safeway supermarket. I was grateful to turn my attention to something else that seemed insignificant by comparison to the number ten thing on my wish list, like food.

  * * *

  Read the entire CHRISTMAS WISHES: Laura's Story, available in print, eBook, and audio.

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  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  R. Barri Flowers is the bestselling author of such teen novels as COUNT DRACULA'S TEENAGE DAUGHTER, GHOST GIRL IN SHADOW BAY, DANGER IN TIME, and CHRISTMAS WISHES: Laura's Story, available in print, eBook, and audio.

  He has also written a number of bestselling teen and young adult related nonfiction books as well, including RUNAWAY KIDS AND TEENAGE PROSTITUTION, KIDS WHO COMMIT ADULT CRIMES, and CHILDREN AND CRIMINALITY.

  Follow the author on Twitter and Facebook, and keep up with his latest news in Wikipedia, YouTube, Goodreads, LibraryThing, MySpace, and www.rbarriflowers.com.