by Deanna Chase
I didn’t want to choose. I wanted to keep talking to him. “What if I have more questions?”
He smiled. “I’m always around. If it isn’t winter though, getting here can be tricky. You could summon me, like your mother did. Or if it is winter, leave your window cracked. I’ll come.” He looked up at the sky. “Time grows short. You must make your choice.”
I closed my eyes and reached in the bag with only one real question on my mind: was it possible to break the curse? I withdrew my hand, afraid to look at what I held. Opening one eye, I saw a beating heart in the palm of my hand. Blue flames popped out all over the organ until it was consumed in fire, yet still it beat in time with mine.
I looked to Orion, but he was gone. A moment later the heart was gone too and I was once again sitting in the attic. I scribbled down what I saw. Everyone else was doing the same, only they had remembered to make a talisman. All I had was the stupid key around my neck. I touched it. It was almost on my heart. Maybe it was perfect. I folded the piece of paper as small as I could and taped it to the back of the key. The image of the heart burned in my brain as it had in my hand. Was it my heart that I saw? Was it saying my passion and focus would get me there as it had my mother? Or was this the sacrifice in her spell? Was that really the only way?
6
The party was in full swing and everyone looked like they were having fun. I stayed along the edges because it was the only place I ever felt comfortable. A movement outside the shop window caught my eye. Granted it was a busy street, but the movement was too fast, too supernatural, so I headed toward it.
I looked into the alley to the left of the building, and the lights suddenly went out. “I thought I asked you to leave,” I told Corbin.
“Perhaps I wanted to see you, pet. I don’t like the way we left things.”
I shook my head. Everything was so much clearer now. “I know you’re only here because Selene is. You couldn’t resist, could you? The pull of her being so close must torture you. Because no matter what you do or say, she is and will always be the only one you can love. You flirt, you lead people on, but those are only distractions from what you can’t have.” I shrugged. “I don’t want that life. I don’t want to be your distraction. I feel sorry for you.” I turned away, but his hand touched my shoulder.
“You still owe me,” he breathed in my ear. “I want that spell.”
I pursed my lips. “After last night’s humiliation, I think we’re even. I controlled you for a few seconds to save you. You caught me in a vulnerable moment and crushed me. It’s over, Corbin. I’m done.”
He backed into the shadows. “We’re a lot of things, Frost. Done isn’t one of them.”
As soon as I stepped back inside, Leslie sought me out. “I’m so sorry I was wrong. I would never have had you get dressed up unless I was positive it was him.”
I nodded. “I know.”
“I guess you’ll never know where the gifts came from.”
I smiled. “Maybe who sent it is less important than having it.” Until I knew more about Orion, I didn’t want to mention him.
Leslie grinned. “This is a new attitude. What did you see in your meditation?”
I thought for a few moments about what the burning heart meant to me. “I saw a way to end this.” I wiggled my gloved fingers in the air. “I saw a path to what I want and I will get there.”
“I would hug you right now, but I know you would flip out, so I won’t, but you’re right. You will get there and we’ll be beside you the whole way.”
That still remained to be seen. “It won’t be easy.”
She laughed. “When have we ever done anything easy in this coven? All that really matters is we have each other’s back, no matter what.”
I took a deep breath and placed a hand on her arm. “I’ve never had friends before. Not real ones.”
Leslie shook her head. “Then don’t you think it’s about time you do?”
I laughed. Maybe this would all work out after all. I touched the key around my neck. The first stop on my journey toward a future would have to be a stop in the past. It looked like I was finally getting to go home.
MANY AUTHORS CLAIM to have known their calling from a young age. Liz Schulte, however, didn't always want to be an author. In fact, she had no clue. Liz wanted to be a veterinarian, then she wanted to be a lawyer, then she wanted to be a criminal profiler. In a valiant effort to keep from becoming Walter Mitty, Liz put pen to paper and began writing her first novel. It was at that moment she realized this is what she was meant to do. As a scribe she could be all of those things and so much more.
When Liz isn’t writing or on social networks she is inflicting movie quotes and trivia on people, reading, traveling, and hanging out with friends and family. Liz is a Midwest girl through and through, though she would be perfectly happy never having to shovel her driveway again. She has a love for all things spooky, supernatural, and snarky. Her favorite authors range from Edgar Allen Poe to Joseph Heller to Jane Austen to Jim Butcher and everything in between.
Liz would love to hear from you
Please stop by and visit at any of the below mentioned networks:
http://www.LizSchulte.com
https://www.facebook.com/liz.schulte
http://twitter.com/lizschulte
http://www.pinterest.com/liz_schulte/
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4755336.Liz_Schulte
Or sign up for her newsletter
http://lizschulte.us4.list-manage1.com/subscribe?u=b24d896a4369244959d216887&id=a525d7447f
Also by Liz Schulte
Check out more books by Liz:
URBAN FANTASY/PARANORMAL ROMANCE
The Guardian Trilogy:
Secrets
Choices
Consequences
The Jinn Trilogy:
Ember
Inferno
Vestige
The Easy Bake Coven Series:
Easy Bake Coven
Hungry, Hungry Hoodoo
Pickup Styx
Tiddly Jinx
Ollie, Ollie Hex ‘n Free
If the Broom Fits (December 2015)
MYSTERY
Dark Corners
Dark Passing
Dark Obsession
The Ninth Floor
ANTHOLOGIES
Naughty or Nice Christmas Anthology (Ella Reynolds Christmas short story)
Christmas Yet to Come (Baker Christmas short story)
SHORT STORIES
Be Light (A Guardian Trilogy Short Story)
Ghosts in the Graveyard (Easy Bake Coven Short Story)
Sweet Little Lies (A Sekhmet Short Story)
Catatonic (A Sekhmet Short Story)
Knead to Know (A Knead to Know short story)
Ghost Of A Chance
Angie Fox
Copyright © 2015 Angie Fox
All Rights Are Reserved.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
No part of this book may be used or reproduced without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
1
The smell of fresh-baked sugar cookies filled my kitchen, and the tinny sound of Frank Sinatra singing “White Christmas” echoed from my outdated iPhone. Behind me, the ghost of a 1920s gangster hovered while I pulled the last hot tray from the oven.
“Move. I don’t want to burn you,” I said automatically, realizing only afterward how ridiculous it sounded. Any object—hot or otherwise—would pass straight through the specter.
Frankie appeared in black and white, his image transparent enough that I could just make out the cooling trays on the kitchen island behind him. He wore a pin-striped suit coat with matching cuffed trousers and
a fat tie.
He inhaled as if he could smell the crisp, warm cookies. “That’s a killer batch, right there,” he observed while I jockeyed around him, “but I gotta tell you, most of the gun barrels are crooked.”
I winked, surprising him. “Everybody’s a critic.”
I’d given in to holiday cheer and let him tell me how to shape the last of the dough, and he’d chosen the things he loved most. Which meant I had a baking sheet full of revolvers, cigarettes, and booze bottles—all oddly shaped because, truly, who has cookie cutters for that sort of thing?
I placed the tray on a rack to start cooling, glad I’d included the surly gangster in my holiday festivities. He was technically a houseguest until I could find a way to free him. Although I had no clue what I was going to do with his contraband cookies.
I couldn’t eat them all or explain them away to guests.
“What’s next?” he asked before I’d even transferred one cookie off the baking tray, never mind the dough-flecked countertops or the dishes. The man obviously hadn’t spent much time in the kitchen before.
“Why don’t you go outside and look at the holiday lights?” I suggested. Perhaps that would get him into the spirit of the season.
My sister, Melody, had lent me a few strands of white ones in the shape of magnolia flowers. I’d foraged some lovely greenery from the woods and done up the front and back porches with pine garlands and homemade balsam wreaths. I’d been too broke to buy ready-made decorations, but these looked nicer anyway.
He snarled at the suggestion that he might be entertained by pretty decorations. “I’m Frankie the German,” he clipped out, as if his words themselves should command respect. “Men fear me. Women want me.”
“I’m very happy for you,” I said, trying to straighten out a revolver barrel as I gently transferred the cookies to the cooling rack. “But this is the holiday season. It’s the perfect time to take a break from inspiring fear. Try to live a little,” I suggested, ignoring his scowl. “How about I finish cleaning the kitchen, and afterward you can challenge me to a game of chess.”
Otherwise, he’d get bored and start making cold spots all over my kitchen. It felt nice in the summer, but right now, it would ruin the yeast bread I had rising.
He clenched and unclenched his hands a few times. “All right,” he said, eyeing me as he glided through the stove and out to the back porch. His voice lingered in the air behind him. “You know I won’t go far.”
“Do I ever,” I murmured. It was my fault he couldn’t leave.
I’d tied him to my land when I accidentally emptied his funeral urn out onto my rosebushes. At the time, I’d believed my ex-fiancé had given me a dirty old vase in need of a good scrubbing or at least a rinse with the hose. But as it turns out, there’s a reason why ashes are customarily scattered to the wind or at least spread out a bit. When I poured the entirety of Frankie’s remains in one spot and then hosed him into the ground, the poor gangster had become my unwilling permanent housemate—at least until I could figure out how to set him free.
Only two people knew I had a ghost for a houseguest: my sister, Melody, and my sweet, strong almost-boyfriend, Ellis. I planned to keep it that way.
I transferred a cookie shaped like a bundle of dynamite that could have almost passed for a nice grouping of holiday candles, except for the “TnT” Frankie had made me etch into the side.
Frankie had opened up a whole new ghostly world to me, and let’s just say things had gotten a little crazy after that.
I left the tray on the stove to cool and brushed off the well-worn green and white checked gingham apron that had belonged to my grandmother. I tried not to sigh. I missed having a house full of people for the holidays. Of course, Melody had stopped by just this morning, and my mom was coming in town next week.
I began sudsing up the sink and placing my mixing bowls into the warm, soapy water.
If I were honest with myself, I missed Ellis. We’d become close enough that I felt his absence when we couldn’t spend time together. He’d been booked solid with family events, and it’s not like I could have joined him. Not after I’d broken my engagement to his brother and barely defended my livelihood and home from his vengeful mother.
He’d come by when he could.
And as if I’d summoned him out of thin air, I heard a knock at the door. It couldn’t be. I dried my hands on my apron. Melody liked to knock and immediately walk inside. My friend Lauralee, too. I had an open-door policy at the cozy antebellum home I’d inherited from my grandmother. But when no one sauntered in, it made my heart skip a beat.
“Ellis?” I called, making sure I’d turned the oven off. And that my messy ponytail wasn’t completely covered in flour. Oh, who cared if it was?
I hurried down the hallway to the foyer and dragged open my heavy front door.
“Matthew,” I said, surprised.
The ghost of Major Matthew Jackson of the Union Army stood on my front porch, with his hands clasped in front of him, appearing almost shy. His image wavered and came into sharper focus. I could see the crisp lines of his uniform jacket, along with his high forehead and prominent cheekbones.
I’d met Matthew on my last adventure. Most of the time, I could only see ghosts when Frankie showed me the other side. But Matthew was one of the most powerful spirits I’d ever met, and he could appear to me on his own. He was also one of the more shy ones.
“Is everything all right?” I asked.
Major Jackson didn’t get out much and I couldn’t imagine what would bring him to my home.
He dipped his chin and glided straight through the glass storm door I’d neglected to open, his mind clearly elsewhere. I stepped back as he entered the foyer.
He stopped when he’d made it barely a few feet inside. “My sincerest apologies for intruding on your afternoon.” He gave a formal bow, appearing somewhat awkward in his social skills, but clearly trying his best.
“It’s quite all right,” I assured him, gesturing him further inside as I closed the door. “My friends are always welcome. What can I do for you?” I didn’t know the formalities involved in a late-nineteenth-century house call, and it’s not like I could offer him a sherry, so we might as well cut to the chase. Still, I couldn’t quite help myself from asking, “Would you like to sit in the back parlor?” just as my mother would have, and my grandmother before her.
Perhaps it was genetic.
He nodded and seemed more at ease with my formal response. I led him through my empty front room to the once-elegant sitting area in the back. The pink-papered walls and polished wood accents appeared so strange without the heirloom rugs and furniture the room had once held. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much left besides a second-hand chessboard, a lopsided futon, and a purple couch I’d brought home after solving a ghost-related issue for a local merchant.
Matthew opted for a place on the couch while I tried to sit elegantly on the edge of the futon.
“I’ve come to ask a favor,” he began earnestly.
Oh my. I crossed my legs at the ankles and sincerely hoped his favor didn’t involve me opening myself to the spirit world. Yes, I’d been able to do a lot of good in the few times I’d ventured forth, but it had been scary and dangerous. Besides, I was a graphic designer, not a ghost whisperer.
As much as it pained me, I had to learn to start saying no.
Matthew cleared his throat. “I would like to locate a Christmas gift for Josephine.”
“How sweet of you.” I felt my shoulders relax. That didn’t sound frightening or dangerous, and I was glad to see a relationship developing between the two ghosts. They’d reconnected during my last adventure. He’d been hurt and so very alone. She’d been shy and had suffered terrible luck with men—until that fateful night in the haunted woods. It had been rather romantic. “I’m sure Josephine would love anything you decide to give her, as long as it’s from the heart.”
Josephine cared about him for who he was, which was a rarity in Mat
thew’s life. His own family had disowned him for joining the Union Army, and the local ghosts hadn’t made him feel welcome in the afterlife for the same reason.
He glanced away before his gaze found mine. “She means everything to me,” he said, with an urgency most women only dreamed about. “That’s why I want to give her my mother’s opal necklace. Before the war—” he cleared his throat “—my mother said I could have the necklace when I found the girl I wish to marry.”
“Oh, Matthew.” I drew a hand to my chest. “You’re going to propose?”
“At Christmas,” he said simply.
I felt myself go a little teary eyed for them, for that perfect connection where you just knew. How wonderful for Josephine. She’d waited a hundred and fifty years to be loved like that.
“I just need you to get me the necklace,” Matthew said.
I blinked back my tears. “What?”
He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “It’s at my family estate, now occupied by the seventh generation of Jacksons.”
Oh, I was familiar with the Jackson compound on the edge of the county, with its twenty sprawling acres and huge main house, occupied by his real, live descendants, none of whom would be pleased if I showed up and explained that the spirit of their great-great-great-uncle needed a family heirloom, a jeweled necklace for that matter, and I’d just be taking it…
“Why don’t you go get it?” I suggested perkily. Most spirits couldn’t interact with the living world, but Matthew’s unusual strength made him an exception.
Like he hadn’t thought of that.
Matthew’s gaze dropped. “I can’t,” he said simply. “My mother told me I could never go home. Not after I signed my enlistment papers.”
