by M J Waverly
Trouble At Thunder Mountain
Cloverville Mystery Series
M. J. Waverly
Copyright © 2019 by M. J. Waverly
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
For my Jack!
About the Author
M. J. Waverly writes quirky cozy mystery and fantasy romance. She loves to hike in the mountains, and is known as Staff to three demanding cats.
If you want to find out more about M.J. check out her website at www.mjwaverly.com
If you enjoyed Trouble At Thunder Mountain, check out Poltergeist Party Girls on Kindle.
Coming soon to Kindle!
Haunted Hobgoblin
Spirits of the Season.
Download Eternally Emma, the free short story about the day Sidney met Emma the ghost for the first time.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
About the Author
Preview of Haunted Hobgoblin
Chapter One
The soles of my feet touched the soft grass, and I sank into the lawn’s emerald lusciousness, connecting me to the land. Surrounded by raised beds of herbs, I inhaled the scents of rosemary, lavender, and sage, reminding me of my Nana, my grandmother.
In a long flowing white gown, the ghost Emma drifted beside me. Thin snaky tendrils writhed in her hair, sort of a Victorian-Medusa look.
“Why are you here?” I asked.
“Something is different around Cloverville. I’m here to investigate.” Emma floated ahead of me.
My soul was on the astral plane. My hand touched a lavender spring. My chest tightened at the memory of my Nana, who vanished from the face of the earth without a trace. There wasn’t any hint or sign of her in the spirit world I had detected.
Nothing but a blank wall.
Total silence.
I stilled. No birds sang. No insects buzzed. A misty gray fog masked the sky like a dreary painting. I tapped into my senses, anticipating darkness and evil.
Emma drifted onward, thinning, becoming more transparent.
A green and growing warmth touched my mind, and a warm breeze brushed against my face. Two weeks ago, I helped release the trapped souls of three sorority sisters to the Light or as my Nana called it, the Bright Side.
Since then, I hadn’t encountered the Blood Collector, a very powerful and evil spirit bound to the Void, but who could temporarily escape to our world. He was the stuff Stephen King horror villains were made of.
“Stay close,” Emma hissed and faded.
A cool breeze brushed against my face, the mist parted, revealing a field of sunflowers. The ten-foot flowers stood like living plant people extending their daisy-shaped faces to the sky, seeking sunlight in the gray mist.
“Sidney, where are you?” My sister, Ava called out to me.
What was my sister doing in this dream? I stepped into the first row of sunflowers. Normally, I encountered my co-worker, Jason Hunsinger from Third Eye Investigations. He had abilities similar to mine, allowing us to meet on the astral plane and to see ghosts. In his case, hear ghosts.
“I’m here,” I called.
Ava rushed at me. “Where am I?” She brushed her short bangs away from her forehead.
“I don’t know.” The hairs lifted on the back of my neck.
The sunflowers leaned in and encircled us, preventing our escape.
“What’s happening?” I asked.
Emma appeared next to me. Even in my dream, the cold breath of death chilled me to the bones.
“Stay close.” Emma motioned with a thin, wispy hand. Her eyes dilated to obsidian black orbs.
I couldn’t see through the encroaching sunflowers in this Van Gogh-vision- quickly-becoming-nightmare. The skies above me darkened as storm clouds roiled and tumbled over another, creating a thick wall of darkness.
“There you are.” A sinister voice whispered in my mind. I shuddered.
The dark-cloaked Blood Collector hovered somewhere in the storm, hiding, waiting for the perfect moment to make his grand appearance. My body froze, and my heart pounded. Wake up. I didn’t want him near Ava.
“He’s here,” I said.
“Sidney. . .” Ava’s voice trembled.
“Don’t talk,” I whispered and grabbed her hand.
A hooded figure descended from the dark clouds and charged at us. The Blood Collector. My heart raced as I pushed my fear aside and tapped into my telekinetic ability.
“Stay behind me,” I said as I released Ava’s hand. My sister hadn’t been exposed to the evil I had experienced in the past few weeks
Recently, Martha Williams, a sweet elderly lady, Cloverville volunteer, and a devoted servant of the Blood Collector died. She was the murderer of the three sorority sisters and of college administrator, Dr. Smith, and librarian, Alice Hartley, all members of a Cloverville coven, which was supposed to maintain the balance between the Void and the Light. Martha had been a member of another coven, a darker, more evil group of magic practitioners, who wanted to open the Void to release the Blood Collector and other dark spirits.
The Blood Collector wanted to break the curse placed upon him by the original coven in the seventeenth century, which held him bound to the Void. He stopped ten feet from me. His jagged robs writhing and flowing as if underwater.
“Introduce me to your new companion?” His voice wet like the underbelly of a snake.
A trembling Ava shrank even smaller, hiding behind me. Emma had totally disappeared. I was on my own.
I kept my gaze on whatever was underneath the hooded cloak. Was this normal attire issued for villains? Great idea for a short story. A tailor that makes cloaks for villains. I tucked the idea away into my subconscious.
I summoned my telekinesis within me, ready to send the Blood Collector back to the Void if I could. My hands grew warmer. The air shimmered behind him.
Emma was no longer the young turn of the twentieth-century college girl personae she’d been when she died. Now, she assumed the shape of a skeletal woman wearing a black and white striped corset, tall top hat with feathers tucked in the burgundy ribbon band, and a black ruffled skirt.
"The boundary grows weaker.” The Blood Collector drifted nearer, the edge of his robe trailing on the ground. Cold, dank air scented with death accompanied him. “I will be free, and you, your friends and family will serve me.” Red embers glowed from his eye sockets. "You can't fight me.” He extended scabby hands covered in decaying flesh.
Light and energy swelled within me.
Holding out my hand, I pushed. A wave of energy hit the Blood Collector, he tumbled over. With another wave of my hands upwards, the energy sent the Blood Collector back up into the thunderstorm. Lightning arced over the surface of the cloud. Emma ascended to the storm clouds and as if being swept by an invisible broom, the dark clouds scudded away as if on high speed, leaving a night sky sprinkled with twinkling stars.
“What was that?” Ava asked.
I turned to my sister and placed my hand on her forehead. “Go home. Wake up and forget this dream.” She blinked and then faded.
Minutes. Seconds later. I don’t know. I woke up in my bedroom as the morning sun peeked through my window. Sweat dripped down my face, and my hair hung loose and wet. Even though my soul had been in the astral plane in some strange garden, my body hummed and surged with energy. My encounter with the Blood Collector had been real. I hoped Ava didn’t remember.
I checked my alarm clock. Six o’clock. I laid back down and pulled the covers up to my chin. I’d hoped I’d seen the last of The Blood Collector. My heart pounded, and I tried to reel in the fear threatening to take over my thoughts.
Think. What do you know about The Blood Collector? Only that he was from the Void, where evil spirits or bad people in this life were sent when the grim reaper came for them. Some people called it Hell. Some people called it the Void.
If your soul was good, you went to the Light or the Bright Side after you departed the planet. However, some souls decided they had unfinished business on Earth and remained in our world. Ghosts as my grandmother called them.
Snowball, the ghost cat, materialized on top of my head and purred. “Good to see you.” Her glow comforted me, and some of the tightness in my chest eased. She jumped down and proceeded to curl up into a sleeping ball at the end of my bed.
Sitting up, I turned on my bedside lamp and reached for Nana’s Book of Shadows enchanted to appear like a leather day planner. Whenever I needed information, I received sketchy bits and pieces. Frustrating when you needed an answer. I opened it, and the calendar squares transformed into an elegant script.
When the Blood Collector grows in strength, other ghosts grow stronger and can break through the Void.
I hoped this didn’t mean other ghosts would be popping out of the Void. I shoved my quilt aside and yawned. Maybe this had been a dream and not a visit by the Blood Collector. Yeah. I could lie to myself all day. It had been a spectral visit.
I walked over to my laptop and turned it on and rubbed my temples to get the blood flowing. It was too early to think about ghosts. I desperately needed coffee, but if I entered the kitchen, Mom would be up. She’d been in a bad mood ever since Dad called last week.
My parents divorced last year when Dad left Mom for a twenty-three-year-old stripper named Taffy. She had been one of my high school classmates, and now she was four months pregnant. Mom freaked out when Dad told her he was returning to Cloverville to raise his youngest child.
I opened my screenwriting program. Writing helped me organize my thoughts and take away my anxiety. In my story, I was in control of what happened to my characters. I was almost finished with my screenplay inspired by my experience with the poltergeist party girls. I would be sending it to the Scream Dream contest sponsored by Trollhouse Productions. The deadline was soon.
Since I started writing again, it’d eased the anger plaguing me since my ex-boyfriend stole my idea for Zombietown. Yes, that Zombietown, the hit television series. My thief and low life of an ex-boyfriend, Camden Lawrence copied my files and wiped out my hard drive, taking credit for my idea and writing. He presented my writing to his agent, and the rest is history.
Someone knocked.
“Come in.” I glanced at my clock. Seven forty-five a.m. Wow, I’d completely lost myself in my script.
Laney, my youngest sister, entered. She had two mugs of hot coffee in her hands. “Thought you could use this.”
“Absolutely.” I took the cup, and she sat down on my bed. Snowball appeared next to her, but my sister couldn’t see the cat.
“Mom left fifteen minutes ago. I stayed low until I heard the front door close,” Laney said.
“I wonder if Dad called her again, last night.” I scanned the last sentence on my screenplay. Then hit save.
“Don’t know,” Laney leaned back on my pillows.
“The bedroom lights were on when I arrived home from the concert.” Laney sipped her coffee.
My sister had parked her food truck, Beans and Greens outside of a concert venue in Atlanta. She had the magical gift of cooking, and she infused her food with uplifting emotions, so people felt happy and full when they ate one of her meals.
“We need to talk to Uncle Joe. Dad can’t build on the back of the property,” I said. My dad wanted to build a tiny house on the back two acres of our family home.”
“I know.” Laney frowned as if she perceived something, but didn’t see what it was. Snowball licked her tail. “What time do you have to be at work?” She asked.
“Ten.”
“Too bad. I thought you might want to go to the farmer’s market with me.”
“I wish. I need to consult with Rudolph.”
Rudolph Clover was the founding father of Cloverville, and as a ghost, he occupied his statue on the town square.
Laney frowned. “Not another ghost?”
“I don’t know.” I closed out of my cloud program, and then I backed up my screenplay on my external hard drive. And then onto a USB drive. Never again would I have only one copy of my work.
“This could be the beginning of something. I’ll talk to Jason. He might have experienced the same dream since we seem to be developing our . . . “ I bent down two fingers in quote marks. “Powers. Have you talked to Ava?” I asked.
Laney shook her head. “She hasn’t answered some of my text messages, and she’s canceled lunch with me three times in the past three weeks.”
“I’ll give her a call.” I shut my computer down, pleased with my word count, but worried about my older sister.
Laney stood up. ”I need to get dressed and head out. I’ll let you have the shower first if you can make it in ten minutes.”
Once I showered, I made sure to wear makeup. I swooped my hair into a bun. Since the weather turned cooler, I wore my boots tucked into my jeans, white tee-shirt, and a black sweater.
On my way through the kitchen, Laney looked up from her laptop. “Like the boots.”
“Thanks,” I rushed out the door.
At the Crooked Spoons coffee shop, I grabbed a coffee and butter and jelly biscuit and sat down on the bench in front of Rudolph Clover’s statue. The leaves on the trees on the square had turned a bright yellow mixed with some orange. The nine o’clock sun shone brightly. Not a cloud in sight. Crows squawked from the roof of the Chapman Reality Building.
Rudolph’s silvery form stepped out. He stretched out his arms and then sat next to me. “Good Morning, Sidney.”
“Good Morning, Rudolph.” I held up my coffee. I had questions about my dream.
“I’ve seen many an autumn come and go over the years, and still the changing of the seasons excites me. It’s a sign that life continues. Life-affirming.” Rudolph drew in a deep breath.
I didn’t want to break Rudolph’s philosophical mood, but I didn’t want to be late for work. “Have you felt a ripple in the ghost network,” I asked. I bit into my biscuit, ignoring the protesting carb conscious part of my brain.
“You felt the change in the astral plane. Your powers are growing stronger. Elizabeth would be pleased.”
Elizabeth was my grandmother’s first name.
“The Blood Collector paid me a visit in my dreams.”
“Oh dear. This confirms what I fear?” Rudolph pursed his lips.
“Who? What?” I lowered my coffee cup.
“I don’t know,” Rudolph said. “No one knows. We’ll have to wait until it manifests itself, but the darkness grows. I can feel the impressions of evil.”
“Do you have any other details?” I needed facts. Information. I didn’t know if I had enough ability to deal with another evil entity like the Blood Collector.
“Only that a strong and angry spirit is on the loose, and when that happens, they usually want one thing. Revenge.”
I shook my head. What I’d eaten of my biscuit sat like a rock in my stomach. I wrapped the remainder back in the paper and tossed it in the trashcan not far from the bench. “I’m not sure what to do.”
“Consult Elizabeth’s book of shadows.” Rudolph floated up and paced
back and forth with his hands behind his back.
“I wonder if someone has taken Martha’s place in the coven, and is helping the Blood Collector.” I glanced up at Rudolph. He didn’t shimmer as much as he usually did. He was keeping secrets from me.
Chapter Two
When I arrived at Hunsinger Automotive, I parked my truck on the side of the building, out of the way of the main parking lot. Inside, Jason waited on a customer at the counter. He waved. I nodded, appreciating his long, lean body. Don’t go there.
Smiling, I continued upstairs to the sparse Third Eye Investigations office housed in the attic. I was beginning to rethink our professional relationship, but it wouldn’t be a good idea to take it to another level. Resisting my physical attraction to Jason was a constant challenge.
I answered some of the comments left on Jason’s YouTube channel. The Third Eye YouTube following had increased by thousands since we posted footage of our ghostly encounters at the Cloverville Community College.
I desperately needed to talk to Jason about my dream and my conversation with Rudolph. Staring at the computer screen, chills from deep within me erupted through my body. I dreaded the encounter with this new ghost. If this new ghost and the Blood Collector joined forces, I didn’t know if I could handle them.
“Get a grip. One problem at a time.” I opened and closed my hands. My telekinesis and my ability to tap into an internal source of energy grew stronger. Maybe my magical abilities grew in proportion to the foes I faced.
The Third Eye Investigations phone rang on Jason’s desk. Jumping up from my chair, I answered. “Hello. Third Eye Investigations.”
