Spirits of the Season: Eight Haunting Holiday Romances

by Amanda DeWees

  Was it the weather changing? Or was it a reminder that an angry spirit was still around? And why the hell couldn’t she see it?

  Tonight, Hannah would consult her grandmother’s journal and figure out how to drag the spirit out of the shadows.

  Chapter 9

  The only thing that tarnished such a lovely vacation day for Hannah was the constant fear of a cold angry spirit wrapping around her neck again. Like thinking of a bee’s sting, the memory of the dark spirit’s touch made Hannah’s skin crawl.

  They never finished their bike ride, but she gave Jackson a tour of the rest of the island by car on their way to the mainland. They spent the afternoon at a local art museum, ate dinner at a little walk-up barbeque shack, and drove through nearby neighborhoods after the sun set. She hoped he would like the unique lawn displays of old carnival junk lit up with Christmas lights – something he would never experience anywhere else in the world.

  Now, at the midnight hour and in the privacy of her room, she lit a candle and tried to call out the strange presence.

  “Spirit, reveal yourself to me.”

  Nothing responded.

  Hannah felt her body heat up with impatient energy. “This is my home. You must show yourself to me.”

  Still nothing. No change in pressure or temperature in the room. She took the candle and decided to try to reach the ghost from another room.

  The mirror in the hallway was empty tonight. No Lady in White gently wept from within it. And in the great room more silence awaited. Mr. Darcy was not standing by the window gazing at the ocean. She realized that Tom Sawyer hadn’t made himself known since the last guests left. It was unlike him to hide for this long.

  Hannah closed her eyes and relaxed her body. After holding and releasing a deep breath, she listened for the spiritual heartbeat of her home. Her beloved inn was eerily silent.

  “Damn it! Show yourself!”

  Her eyelids flew open as the empty staircase creaked. Shadows slipped down into the room. The drop in temperature created a coat of frost across the windows. Several bulbs on the Christmas tree burst from the intense pressure.

  Down the hall, Hannah could see the Lady in White leaning out of her mirror. The sound of her weeping was very different tonight. She was scared and looking towards Hannah as though she had something to say. A high-pitched wail reverberated down the hallway, cracking the glass and terrifying the Lady. Her wispy image retreated quickly into her mirrored world.

  “Stop this. I am not afraid of you.” Anger, more than fear, filled Hannah. This was her home and these were her friends. She would not let a negative spirit bully them. “By blood, this home is mine. You must show yourself to me.”

  Every light in the house and even the Christmas lights outside winked out. In the darkness, Hannah sensed the spirit was near, but she couldn’t lock in on it.

  An explosion of light manifested in front of the fireplace and flew in a tight spiral toward Hannah. Instinctively, she took a step back and then held her ground.

  She’d never had to think defensively around a ghost before. She picked up a handful of the mistletoe still sitting on the coffee table and held it in front of her. Its magic was far greater in romantic endeavors than in protective ones, but she prayed it would be enough. “Stop!”

  Inches away, the spirit light manifested into the ghostly form of a woman. She stared at Hannah and the festive herb briefly before laughing and bursting into a million particles of ghostly dust.

  Jealousy. That was the cold emotion that had hounded Hannah since yesterday.

  If the form of the woman’s ghost was true, she’d been a beautiful woman. The dress she wore was so indistinct that Hannah could not decipher the time period from which she came. The only thing Hannah did know was that the ghost was locked in on her. But how? Why?

  Spirits were tied to this dimension through a place or an object of extreme value. Something that was important to them in their physical lives.

  Hannah’s grandmother, who had the same gift, collected haunted items. That was how Mr. Darcy and the Lady in White had come to the Inn. He was tied to a smoking pipe on the bookshelf, and she was tied to the mirror. No records of Tom Sawyer – or whatever his real name was – existed, but Hannah was certain he was tied to the house itself in some way. That was why he could scamper around the entire property and cause trouble at any time of day or night.

  But where did this jealous ghost come from? It could have been here for a while, but Hannah couldn’t think of any new items in the house that would be important to anyone. Guests did forget things from time to time. But she hadn’t yet met a ghost who was tied to socks or cell phones.

  For the second time, she had to acknowledge that Jackson was the only thing new here. This time she couldn’t dismiss the idea. He could easily have something new in his life that happened to have a ghost attached to it. But then her mind circled back around to herself. She was new in his life.

  Her head hurt trying to figure out crazy and jealous ghosts. Thinking of crazy ghosts brought an image to mind of one in particular.

  “Nellie Pearle.” Hannah could use a little supernatural help. Maybe a ghost knows how to catch a ghost.

  Chapter 10

  The sunrise was barely peeking above the cypress trees over on the mainland when Hannah arrived at Nellie’s Bar the next morning. Meg was sitting at the bar drinking a cup of coffee and reading her latest gossip magazine.

  “Happy Christmas Eve, Meg.”

  Meg nearly fell off the barstool. “Holy shit! What are you doing here this early?”

  “I could ask you the same thing.”

  Meg held up her hand to show off the sparkly rock sitting happily on her ring finger.

  “Meg! That’s fantastic.” Hannah hugged her tight. “I’m so excited for you.”

  “Thanks. We didn’t sleep last night. We didn’t even go home.” The wink and the satisfied smile on her face said it all.

  Hannah couldn’t be happier for her friend. Meg was one of one of Nellie’s matchmaking success stories – a Pearle’s Girl.

  “What about you?” Meg said. “Weren’t you playing tourist with your hottie house guest yesterday? You should be playing hostess with him right now, if you know what I mean.”

  “The rumors are true. He’s a good-looking man. But he’s paying to sleep under my roof, not to sleep under me.”

  “Sleeping is not what I had in mind.” Meg giggled into her next sip of coffee and accidentally choked on it.

  Hannah buried her sense of guilt. She knew Meg would be angry to find out that Jackson Moore was the hottie house guest, but Hannah needed to remain loyal to her code of privacy. “I’m here to speak with Nellie.”

  “God, I hope Nellie wasn’t watching last night.” Meg put her forehead on the bar, and that’s when Hannah noticed the empty bottles of champagne at the far end.

  Hannah hated to smirk at her friend’s pain, but she did bring it on herself. “If she was, I hope you made her proud.”

  Hannah moved to the other side of the bar and poured two small shots of tequila. They clinked their glasses together, which made Meg flinch a little. “To the hair of the dog that bit you!”

  “To you and the hottie.”

  They’d barely drained the glasses when they both fell into a severe case of the giggles.

  “Pour ol’ Nellie a glass of that, honey.” The rich sound of Nellie Pearle’s voice slid sensually into the room.

  Not for the first time, Hannah marveled at the old sideshow entertainer’s presence. Unlike most spirits, Nellie could materialize into a nearly-perfect corporeal form. The warmth that was missing from her body was spread generously across her face. Nellie loved people. Loved helping them.

  Hannah identified with that completely. She poured a shot glass full of tequila and slid it over to the smiling ghost.

  Nellie drank it, but only a wistful expression came from it. “Lordy, how I wish I could actually taste it. You came to see me, honey?”


  “Yes. I seem to have a ghost problem.”

  “You’ve always had ghosts.”

  “This one’s new, and she’s full of anger and jealousy.” Hannah showed her leg wound as proof of her problem. “And she’s taking it out on me. I don’t know who she is or where she came from. She barely showed herself to me last night. She has my ghosts so scared they seem to be in hiding.”

  “Not that I mind a little spirited competition, but she needs to cross over.” A feathered boa materialized around Nellie’s shoulders as if she’d simply commanded it to be there. She hugged it to her large bosom like an old friend.

  “How?”

  “You need to help her.”

  “Nellie, I just see ghosts. I don’t offer them therapy.”

  “This one is going to need your help and you have a good incentive to do it.”

  Hannah looked down at her wound.

  “Not that incentive.”

  Hannah could only stare.

  Nellie’s flesh jiggled when she jabbed her fists against her hips. “Jackson Moore.”

  Meg shrieked. “Oh, God! Hannah, why didn’t you tell me?”

  Nellie’s gaze never wavered from Hannah, but she winked.

  “The spirit is attached to Jackson Moore? I kept coming back to that idea.” It fit. The spirit had arrived at the same time he did.

  “Grandmother showed me once how to help a spirit cross over, but what do I do if it doesn’t want to?”

  Hannah could hear Meg tapping away on her cellphone. She was probably pulling up his life story. “Holy shit, is that him?” Meg held up her phone for Hannah to see.

  “Yep, that is the Jackson Moore, who’s currently my guest and deserves total privacy.” Hannah tried to emphasize her point by staring hard at her best friend.

  “I swear I won’t say a word to anyone.” Meg whistled the Twilight Zone theme. “This is some mind-blowing serendipity. Your hottie used to play a hunter of the undead on television, and now he’s haunted by one in real life.”

  “Exactly how is this a fortunate coincidence?” Hannah couldn’t share in the humor of the moment.

  “Because it brought him to you. To your haunted house and to you, a woman with the ability to see ghosts.” Meg threw her hands up in the universal signal for duh.

  Hannah wondered if he knew a ghost was haunting him, or if he was committed to the idea that he suffered from plain bad luck. Did he know the ghost? Did she have something to do with his fiancée leaving him?

  “Meg, can I borrow your car?”

  “Sure, why?”

  “I don’t feel like taking my scooter over the bridge, and I’m really going to need something more than mistletoe.” Hannah caught them both grinning at her. “And for the record, he’s not my hottie. Not yet.”

  Chapter 11

  Hannah arrived home at noon with a basket of fresh sage and lavender. The incense made with these herbs should create an environment unwelcoming to a spirit’s dark side. The only place that had the supplies handy on Christmas Eve was a little Wiccan shop up in Ybor City near Tampa.

  From the window, Hannah could see that Jackson was enjoying the sunny day from the solitude of the courtyard. Beside him on the ground, his sketchbook and pencils were looking well-used.

  While she had her time alone, she put the fresh herbs into the oven on low heat to dry them and settled with a coffee in front of her computer to do a little research.

  Since she wasn’t really a fan of the show and since she wasn’t a gossip hound like Meg, Hannah figured she had some catching up to do on Jackson Moore. A Google search produced thousands of web links on Jackson’s recent relationship and its recent demise. But she wanted more than details about his romantic life.

  He’d mentioned bad luck as playing a role in the loss of his acting job.

  Most of what she read was useless speculation about the show wanting to take a different direction and rumors that Jackson wasn’t on board with those changes. She had to dig really deep to find a blogger that seemed to have insider knowledge of things that happened on set at Dark Haven. The writer even went so far as to describe Jackson as the victim of a show curse.

  As evidence of his theory, the writer pointed out an extreme escalation in the number of strange on set incidents in the past year. The sound stage frosted over one morning – on the inside. An earthquake that only seemed to happen under their building popped all the plumbing and created a flood throughout the set. While filming an intimate scene with Jackson, Becky’s skin broke out in a rash of bright red welts.

  There was more, but nothing solid to conclude that the show curse was really a curse on Jackson in particular. But there had to be an answer somewhere. She knew the spirit was connected to him and she knew it was a woman. What kind of woman would be so attached to Jackson in real life that she wouldn’t be able to let go in the afterlife?

  Unrequited love. A fan!

  How did someone research psycho fans? Court records. Or better yet…gossip magazines.

  She found that Meg’s favorite magazines had back issues online. It didn’t take long after that to find the mystery woman.

  Jackson had a restraining order placed on a woman a little over a year ago. And boy, did she have a story. Mrs. Mona Black, given the nickname “Black Widow” by the local newspaper when she was arrested for the murder of her husband. She was later acquitted. And a few months later, she was dead.

  The timeline of articles suggested that Mona Black shifted her obsession to Jackson about the time of her acquittal.

  How did she come to fixate on Jackson?

  He didn’t know it yet, but he was going to have to tell Hannah the whole story this time. It might be crucial in helping to rid him of his psycho ghost once and for all.

  One thing Hannah knew for sure. She would need more than her grandmother’s old metaphysical cleansing ritual to tame a ghost wielding that much emotional power. Especially if Mona was going to put up a fight to stay in this dimension.

  Chapter 12

  Jackson decided that Pearl Key and The Beachcomber were perfect for him. There were moments when the house made little soothing sounds. They were probably normal settling noises for an old house, but he liked to think that it was talking to him. In this weird and beautiful place, he felt more relaxed than he had in years. Inspiration flowed onto page after page of his sketchbook.

  He’d started with the island and the marina. On a new page, he drew palm and sea grape trees and the gazebo surrounded by rolling dunes of sea grass. He drew the inn, giving it so much detail and texture that it seemed to leap off the page. And then he drew Hannah – over and over again. Pouting. Smiling. Laughing. Quietly in thought.

  He set his book aside to let his mind wander with story ideas. The influences of a quaint seaside town, carnival-inspired characters, and Hannah’s pirate legends began to fuse into a freakishly interesting graphic novel idea.

  Jackson thought his life was recently cursed with bad luck that followed him wherever he went. But maybe he was just looking at it wrong. Maybe the universe was pushing him towards a new adventure. Long before he’d landed the role of a lifetime, he’d spent years sketching characters and creating elaborate tales around them. He’d even sold a few of his stories for use in comics.

  It was time for a new dream. Jackson Moore, writer and illustrator. He liked the sound of that.

  He felt so much lighter in spirit here – no strangely cold sensation of pressure or stress. Within the walls of The Beachcomber, he’d found his first full night of sleep in years.

  Hannah’s voice made him open his eyes to the tropical canopy above him. The palm trees were no longer silhouetted by the afternoon sun, which had dropped low in the sky. He heard her soft voice again. “Jackson?”

  “Hmm?” He could barely speak due to the drowsiness of the afternoon.

  “Would you like to experience a traditional Pearl Key Christmas Eve?”

  His stomach rumbled, reminding him that he’d skipped lu
nch. “Does it involve food?”

  “Like any good holiday tradition, it does.”

  “Definitely, yes.”

  “Great. It’s a date. Meet me downstairs in an hour.”

  Chapter 13

  Hannah was being flirty when she’d called it a date, but she was more than happy with Jackson’s response. He’d taken the word seriously and dressed up for the occasion in a Christmas red dress shirt, black slacks, shiny shoes – and he was holding a red hibiscus from her own courtyard.

  The hostess seated them at Hannah’s usual table in the far corner of the outside deck. The restaurant already had a great view of the marina on the bay side of the island, but this part of the island was very thin. From here, they also had a pretty view of the public beaches across the street. “Every year, this is my table on Christmas Eve. I watch the sun set over the Gulf, eat a bucket of seafood, and wait for the boat parade to begin.”

  The server dropped off two frosty mugs of beer with lime wedges.

  “It’s perfect. Look at the colors of that sunset.” His smile was so wide the dimple appeared. “I haven’t pulled out my paints in years, but that view is canvas-worthy.”

  She enjoyed watching him, the way he would take deep breaths and savor the air. It made her happy to help him find his sense of peace with the world and relax enough to enjoy the spirit of Christmas. If things had gone as originally planned, he’d be getting married at just about this moment in the gazebo behind The Beachcomber.

  Hannah couldn’t totally relax, her mind returning to the ghost problem. She felt strongly that the ghost of Mona Black was in some way responsible for his failed romance. Hannah hoped she had the power to help free him from that burden, so maybe he wouldn’t lose the next girl.

  Their boiled dinner arrived in two paper-lined buckets filled to the rim with Gulf shrimp, lobster, clams and oysters. A tray between them was loaded with coleslaw, roasted potatoes and buttery corn-on-the-cob.