by West, Tara
Krysta’s Curse
Tara West
Copyright © 2011 by Tara West
Smashwords Edition
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
Cover Art by Tamra Westberry
This ebook formatted by CyberWitch Press
This book is dedicated to my awesome peeps at the Eclective.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
The Whispers Series
About the Author
Prologue
Sophie’s house—six years earlier
“Sophie, AJ!” Where are they? Where are they? We have to get out of this house. My legs were shaking so badly, I could barely stand on them. You can’t faint, Krysta.
“Boo!”
“Aaaahhhh!” Making a hasty retreat, I tripped over my own legs, landing on my butt. Looking at the puzzled expression of my third-grade classmate, I breathed a sigh of relief.
“What’s wrong with you?” Sophie bent over me, offering a chubby hand. “Why didn’t you come get me?”
I grabbed her by the wrist, unsteadily pulling myself up. “I…I think I saw a ghost.”
Scowling, she crossed her arms. “Just because you couldn’t find me, doesn’t mean you should make up a ghost.”
“I’m not making it up.” I cautiously turned my head in both directions, terrified he was still in the house. “I saw him. I really did.”
Lifting her rounded chin, Sophie tapped her foot. “Okay, what did he look like?”
How could I forget? I would forever have his image in my head. In the bathtub, in my bed at night, whenever I was alone, I would remember his floating spirit, his pained expression. “He was maybe a little older than us. He had red hair and a red and white striped shirt.”
“Corbin!” Sophie’s hands flew to her mouth.
“Corbin?” Somehow, putting a name to his spirit only made my experience more real, more frightening.
“My neighbor,” Sophie gasped. “He died two weeks ago. He had red hair and always wore that shirt. Did he say anything to you?”
“No.” I shook my head.
Sophie swallowed, her eyes nearly popping out of her head. “Where did you see him?”
“The living room,” came a raspy voice. Sophie and I both shrieked.
I turned to see AJ standing motionless in front of the living room entryway, her sun-kissed skin was now nearly as white as the ghost. I had forgotten that she still hadn’t come out of hiding.
“Did you see him, too?” I asked AJ.
Her mouth opened, but nothing came out. Finally, she just shook her head.
“Then how did you know where he was?” I wondered.
She stuttered a few times before spitting out the words. “I dreamed him.”
A strange chill raised the hair on the back of my neck. Fear and awe pushed blood through my veins even faster than when I’d seen the ghost. This couldn’t be happening. This was just too freaky to be real. As I shakily moved toward AJ, I looked into her frozen expression, and somehow, I suspected what she meant.
But how?
“What do you mean you dreamed him?” I whispered.
AJ’s lips trembled, as she wrapped her arms across her stomach. “I had a dream about this day, us playing, the ghost. I…I didn’t think it would really happen.”
“What was he doing when you saw him?” Sophie asked.
AJ’s eyes and mouth appeared to be encrusted in ice, her arms and feet motionless, like she was rooted to the floor. “He just glided, like he was on skates.” Her tone was even, but not calm.
Somewhere on the edge of AJ’ voice, suspended in her breath, was the tangible fear that I also felt in my bones. Something weird, something major, was happening.
The act of lifting my arm felt like lifting dead weight, as I pointed toward Sophie’s darkened living room. “He kind of glided from one side to the other and disappeared behind a window.” Recalling that image sent new shivers down my spine.
Sophie’s eyes bulged even more and her mouth fell open. “What window?”
“The window behind the couch,” I said. Although the window was huge, it was veiled in heavy drapes, casting an eerie gloom over the area.
I looked at Sophie, who began to sway from side to side. “You’re turning green.”
She put her hand to her throat. “I was hiding behind the couch.”
I grabbed their hands, tugging them in the direction of the front door. “Let’s get out of here.”
BOOM. “Aaaahhhh!”
I found myself locked in a tight embrace. AJ was pulling on my hair and Sophie’s nails had dug into my back. Sophie screamed so loud I thought my eardrums must have burst. Somehow, I summoned the courage to look in the direction of the loud noise.
Sophie’s parents stared at us before exchanging confused expressions with each other. A big suitcase, which probably caused the loud noise, was lying at their feet.
Pinching Sophie and AJ, I made them open their eyes. Sophie squealed, running into her mom’s arms before pulling back and pointing at AJ and me. “Krysta and AJ saw our dead neighbor.”
“What?” Sophie’s dad laughed, narrowing his eyes in our direction.
“He was in our living room,” she blurted. “He walked right through me!”
“Rose Marie,” Sophie’s mom looked over my shoulder. “What is this about?”
I turned to see Rose Marie, Sophie’s older sister, standing behind us. She was supposed to be our babysitter, but she took off after Sophie’s mom went to pick up her dad at the airport. She must have snuck into the house when she saw them pull up.
“They’re just pretending, Mom.” She laughed, flinging her body onto the couch. The couch that Corbin had walked through just minutes earlier.
“No.” Turning to her sister, Sophie stomped her foot. “They really saw him. They described him and everything.”
Grabbing the remote, Rose Marie rolled her eyes and turned on the TV.
My heart sank as I heard the faint laughter of Sophie’s parents. We really did see a ghost. Why didn’t they believe us?
Sophie’s head jerked back toward her mother. “We are not being fanciful girls.”
Sophie’s mom gasped. “I didn’t say that you were.”
Pointing a shaky finger at her mother, Sophie’s eyes began to water. “But you were thinking it.”
“How did you?” Her mo
m shook her head. “Never mind. I don’t want to hear any more ghost talk. You girls listen, and listen good. There are no such things as ghosts!”
Chapter One
Krysta’s bedroom—present day
“Emmy Jane, wake up.”
Trying to rub the sleep from my eyes, I propped myself up on wobbly elbows. An old couple hovered above me with determined expressions.
Determined to drive me crazy! “What are you doing in my room?”
The old woman turned a frown. “We need your help.”
She could have been anyone’s grandma. She could have been my grandma. But I didn’t care anymore. I was tired of these intrusions into my sanity.
“Don’t you realize I have school tomorrow?” God, why couldn’t I have been a normal girl?
The old man shifted in front of the woman. The outline of a long, scraggly beard was still visible despite his translucent form. “It’s me, your grandpa, Emmy Jane.”
Annoyed, I rolled my eyes. “I don’t have a grandpa.”
The old woman attempted to nudge him, but her elbow just slipped in his body, like running a knife through Jell-O. “This ain’t Emmy Jane, Ed.”
Scowling, he shook his head. “Of course she is, Grandma.”
“Look, aren’t you people supposed to be sleeping…like all the time?” Why did they wake me up just to argue? I was tired and getting more annoyed by the second.
Ignoring me, Grandma proceeded to prove Grandpa wrong. “Emmy Jane was a good head taller.”
Great, now even the dead were poking fun of my height. What would they criticize next? My dull brown eyes or my hair which looked more like an electrified mop on my head?
“Hello, dead people, please leave.” Waving my arms at them, I tried to get their attention. “I can’t go to school with circles under my eyes.”
Grandpa threw up his hands. “Well then, who is she?”
Holy crap! Did people lose their hearing when they died? They were treating me as if I was dead.
“I don’t know.” Grandma shrugged. “But she sees us and that’s all that matters.”
The spirits turned toward me.
I instinctively rubbed my arms. I didn’t know why dead people always gave me the chills, but they did. Still, I was relieved to finally get their attention, yet weirded out, too. I mean, yeah, I was used to dead people waking me up at night. But I couldn’t say I liked it.
I realized by their clothes that they must have lived in the last century. Grandpa’s long beard was kind of goofy, but the way his eyes fixed on me creeped me out. Make that one eye. The other eye kept rolling to the back of his head. Although Grandma had a sweet kind of smile, she looked a little too cliché with her knit shawl and hair pinned back in some out-of-style bun.
I hoped I wasn’t going to be that uncool when I died. I mean, I knew I couldn’t take my cosmetics with me, but I would still insist on a decent hairstyle for my burial. Hopefully, by the time I died, longer lasting anti-frizz products would be on the market.
I sighed, realizing that getting rid of these pests wouldn’t be easy. “Do you mind telling me what you’re doing in my room?”
“I’m Gertrude.” She pulled tightly on her shawl before nodding toward Grandpa. “This here’s Ed. We’d be much obliged for a moment of your time.”
Feeling my teeth grind together, I had to remind myself to unlock my jaw before I rubbed off all my enamel. “Do I have a choice?”
“No.” Ed shook his head. “She’s much too sassy to be Emmy Jane.”
What nerve! As if he had any right to come into my room without asking, waking me up on a school night. I clenched my fists into balls, only releasing my fingers after realizing my nails were breaking skin. “Excuse me, but I was sleeping.”
“So was I.” Punching his fist in the air, Ed started yelling. “But them people started poking around my restin’ place. They tore down that old oak tree. That tree been there before I was buried.”
An involuntary chill raced up my spine as the air around me grew colder.
“Don’t mind him.” Gertrude rolled her eyes, making another futile poke in his ribcage. “He’s been a grumpy old goat for over a hundred years.”
Ed wagged his finger at me. “You’d be hotter than a poker stick if they turned your tombstone to rubble.”
“Shush now, Ed.” Gertrude swatted him, only to have her hand swoosh through his chest. “You’re scarin’ the girl.”
“I’m not scared. I’ve seen plenty of dead people.” I sat up, pulling the threadbare comforter over my midsection and hugging my knees for warmth. I kept my gaze fixed on the unwelcome guests. “Now what do you want?”
Ed’s shoulders fell, the bottom portion of his face turning down. “We want our graveyard back.”
Unbelievable! What did they expect from me? Go to a graveyard in the middle of the night and fix their tombstones? “What am I supposed to do about it?”
Clasping both hands together, Gertrude’s eyes twinkled with an unnatural glow. “We thought you’d never ask.”
****
Closed Facebook Group/Some ungodly hour of the morning
Just call me your average, everyday fashion goddess who knows how to accessorize any outfit or summon a poltergeist.
You heard me correctly.
I don’t know why dead people want to talk to me, but they do. It’s not like I can help them. Dead people don’t know a thing about fashion and they’re really not interested in the latest trends. Too bad. That would make my life so much easier.
Why, you ask?
Because a couple of ancients visited my bedroom last night and asked me to do the unthinkable! I mean, they’re already dead, so why do they have to ruin my life, too? It’s bad enough they’re always spooking me when I’m trying to sleep, but now they want me to stop the new mall project and save their sacred burial site. Come on! I’m just fourteen. Why don’t they go bother the mayor or something?
I don’t have time to fix the lives of the deceased. I’ve got a lot going on right now. Bryon Thomas, my new lab partner in science, is a total hottie. He’s coming over tomorrow night so we can work on a project. What if they show up? He’ll freak. And worse, he could tell the whole school. My social life would be, excuse the pun, dead.
Besides, they really don’t understand how badly I want that mall. Only five minutes from my apartment. How cool is that?
No, I can’t do it. I won’t.
The mall is expected to open when I turn sixteen, just when I’m old enough to get a real job. I heard employees get a thirty percent discount at most of the stores. No more traveling to the outlet mall forty-five miles out of town. Besides, don’t they realize what stopping this mall would do to my reputation? I mean, I know I’m barely five-feet-two, but I still have time to grow. One day, I’m going to be on the cover of Cosmo. But if these ghosts keep driving me crazy, I’ll be the poster child for Weirdo.
Chapter Two
“Hey, Krysta, missed you on the bus.” Sophie Sinora, my best friend of six years, sat at the far corner cafeteria table. Her bright green eyes sparkling with amusement, she flipped her smooth chestnut hair over her shoulder before pointing a fry in my direction.
“Slept in. My dad had to drive me to school.” I sat down with my usual lunch, diet soda and a side salad.
“Did you get my text?” she asked.
I sighed while shaking my head. “My dad’s late paying the phone bill.”
No surprise there. My dad was usually late paying every bill. Losing electricity or phone for a few days was something that happened all the time in my household.
“Well, I got the scoop on some fashion news. In fact, I doubt you even know about it.” Sophie flashed me a smile before shoving a fry into her mouth.
Impossible. No one heard fashion news before me, especially not Sophie. That girl just lost all her baby fat and I still couldn’t get her to try on low-rise jeans.
“What is it?”
“My mom found out from
another realtor that the new name of the mall is supposed to be The Crossover.”
“Sounds right,” I shrugged, “considering where they’re building it.”
Sophie’s eyes widened. “What do you mean?”
“I mean the mall is on an old burial ground.” I sighed, trying to brush back a piece of hair frizz that slipped out of my headband, making a mental note to go gel it before lunch ended. “Didn’t you read my entry last night?”
Even though I had a huge Facebook account with more friends than anyone I know, I also had a private account, just for Sophie and AJ. Sophie was called Mind Whispers, AJ was Dream Whispers and they called me Ghost Whispers. Instead of pictures of our faces, we use the backs of our heads. That was Sophie’s idea, just in case one day Facebook did something weird and made all private groups public. One could never be too careful.
“What time did you post it?” “About two.”
“In the morning?” Sophie rolled her eyes. “Some of us actually sleep, Krysta.”
“Just tell us already.” AJ Dawson, my other best friend, came up behind us, wearing her softball jersey, old jeans and scuffed shoes.
Out of all my friends, AJ really had the worst fashion sense, but there was nothing I could do. She was a stubborn jock. I’d tried putting makeup on her a few times, but she washed it off within minutes. Lucky for AJ, she was a natural beauty, tall with pale blonde hair and flawless, tanned skin.
Some people like me had to work at it, wearing uncomfortable, high heels and spending a small fortune on hair gels.
After tossing her barfy burger on the table, AJ wadded up her wrapper and shot it into a garbage can. “Did you have company last night?”
“More like uninvited pests,” I huffed. They ruined my sleep, causing me to use a lot more concealer to cover up the dark circles under my eyes. How could I go on like this? They said they’d be back to see if I had any ideas. I didn’t know when, but I knew I wouldn’t get much sleep while waiting for them to return.
If it wasn’t for my two best friends, I don’t know how I would have kept my sanity. They were the only “living” people who knew of my gift, if that’s what you’d call it. Most times, my gift felt more like a curse. After the time I saw a ghost in Sophie’s house, no one believed me except Sophie and AJ. They knew I was telling the truth. Maybe because they also had freakish gifts. Sometimes, people’s thoughts just popped into Sophie’s head. And whenever AJ had a dream, it always came true.
