by Lee French
Grandpa Jack noticed her from his armchair and grunted. Drew sat on the couch near him with Mutt’s head in his lap and smiled at her.
Grandma Tammy clucked her tongue and fetched Claire a glass of juice without being asked.
Maybe she didn’t remember the family she was born into, but she had one here. She let the girls take Enion to play with him, and knew she hadn’t lied when she told her dragon that things would be okay.
Epilogue
Iulia
Iulia screamed in darkness. Every fiber of her being burned. A man screamed with her. Why? Though agony seared her, she shut her mouth. His voice echoed in her head. She wanted to know what happened to Claire, Drew, and the other boy that had to be Kay.
“Shut up,” she snapped. To her surprise, her throat didn’t hurt and her voice didn’t crack.
She lashed out with a blast of power, aiming to douse the flames engulfing her and provide light. Her effort took the pain away and lit torches in sconces. The man who resembled Justin stood with her in a stone room. Tapestries depicting geometric designs and dragons hung on the walls. A woven rug in bands of color kept her bare feet from the chill of the floor.
“Antium,” she breathed. From the feather-stuffed mattress on the wood-frame bed to the stool at the desk with a polished bronze mirror hanging on the wall, she knew this room well. Caius afforded her one true luxury—privacy. This bedroom belonged to her, and he never entered it. Their shared bed sat in an airy chamber above ground, where the crash of the waves lulled them to sleep. This room, deep inside the cliff, had no natural light and remained chilly throughout the year.
“Who? Who the hell are you and where the hell are we?” The man advanced on her, his fist raised.
No muscle-bound idiot frightened Iulia. She raised her chin and rested her hands on her hips. “This is my domain. I ask the questions, not you.”
The man stopped and furrowed his brow, making him look like a cave dweller too stupid to comprehend the words he heard. “You’re a woman,” he spat. “No woman tells me what to do.” He slapped her, the harsh crack echoing despite the wall hangings.
Iulia’s head snapped to the side. She rubbed her cheek and remembered Caius doing the same. Not in this room, though. Never in this room. Raising her hand, she summoned power. Rather, she tried to summon power. Nothing came at her call. She stared at her fingers, then let her gaze drift to her opponent.
He had no aura. Yet, she knew he was a ghost. Ghosts had an aura marking them as such. She reached for the ley line she knew ran behind the wall and found nothing. Her senses failed to stretch beyond her own body, and barely covered even that. Everything seemed stunted and minimal. Something had rendered her naked and blind.
She shied away from the obvious answer to what could do that. That answer made no sense anyway. All her memories remained intact.
“Antium,” she snapped, “is a place. I am Iulia Marius. Who are you?”
The man lowered his hand and nodded in satisfaction. “Dwight Evans. Where’s Antium?”
“Rome.” Judging by this man’s resemblance to Justin, he had to be the idiot Knight’s father or grandfather. That made him another of her descendants. Again, she pushed away the answer to the question of how they had equal footing here.
Dwight scratched his chin and reminded her of a monkey. “Isn’t that in Italy?”
Iulia shrugged. She hadn’t seen current maps yet, or delved into geography. Perhaps the Empire had fractured. The pieces might have taken regional names, though she doubted those on the southern peninsula had ever mustered the strength to overtake Capua, let alone cities farther north, like Antium or Rome.
Her attention fell to Dwight, an unpleasant man with a vulgar name. He suited this horrific Portland place. “We seem to be stuck here.”
“Where is here?” Dwight scowled at her and raised his fist again. “I swear, if you say ‘Antium’ again, I’m gonna to belt you.”
Iulia turned away from him so she could grimace in peace. She’d endured ten years of Caius during his life and two thousand more after his death so she could deal with this crude ass? At least Claire, Justin, and Drew had been relatively polite. She preferred their treachery to Dwight’s blunt crudity. “A metaphysical place outside the world you know.”
“Meta-what? Speak English, you smug bitch.”
Ignoring him, she approached the wall and touched a tapestry. This one featured Leeloo. Caius never saw it or knew about it. He’d approved her request to commission tapestries and paid for them without bothering to see them. No doubt, he’d expected her taste to run so far counter to his that he’d only sneer at her choices.
“Poor Leeloo,” she whispered.
Dwight thumped her in the back. She stumbled forward and smacked her face into the wall. The tapestry cushioned her, preventing injury. “I asked you a question. You’re gonna answer me.”
Not bothering to hide her sneer, Iulia faced him. Over his shoulder, she noticed more evidence of the fact she wanted to deny. That wretched wall design from that wretched kitchen intruded on her bedroom.
“I’m not your plaything,” she snarled. “You will cease touching me this instant.”
Dwight stepped closer, his angry scowl filling her vision. “What’re you gonna do about it?” He poked her in the shoulder with one finger. “Fight back?”
For the first time in a long time, Iulia shivered with fear. This odious man barely knew the rules and had only a fraction of her knowledge, yet he’d been a ghost long enough to amass power already. Everything Drew, Claire, and Kay had done gave Iulia the upper hand, but only temporarily. She had to keep it if she wanted to control the situation.
“You’re bigger and stronger than me. I know you’ll win a purely physical battle. But then you’ll know nothing more than you do now. I’m a witch, Dwight. Even more, I’m a witch from a time when ghosts like you were commonplace. I know exactly where we are and how everything works here. If you insist upon trying to control me through physical intimidation, then I will explain nothing and you’ll have to flounder and grope in the dark. If, instead, you’d prefer my cooperation, then step back and temper yourself.”
Dwight furrowed his brow again. He leaned close enough that she could smell his rancid breath. “You use a lot of funny words.”
Iulia stifled a roll of her eyes. This idiot required coddling and small words. Caius had, at least, been intelligent and somewhat cultured. “I know where we are and why. Hit me again and I’ll never tell you anything. Back off and I’ll help you.”
She watched the gears of his mind clank and squeal from disuse. Dwight took a step back and glowered at her. “Start explaining.”
“You’re dead.” Iulia flicked her gaze to the floral print, and noted with satisfaction that it ceased expanding. If she paid enough attention to that, she could forget about what kept her here.
“I’m not.”
“Yes, you are. You’re a ghost. A fractured, partial remnant left behind when a person dies. What memories you carry define you.” She tasted bile as she fought her own knowledge. Even though she had no sense of taste. Or smell, or anything else.
Dwight lurched toward her, but he stopped before he touched her. “You’re a damned liar.”
“I dare you to hold your breath as long as you can.” Her own breath caught in her throat. Breath she needed no more than he.
He eyed her suspiciously, then made a show of sucking in a lungful of air that didn’t exist and holding his breath. They both waited. His face scrunched in confusion and annoyance. Iulia slipped away from him to sit on the edge of her bed with her back to him. Tears rolled down her cheeks.
“Maybe you’re right,” Dwight grumbled. “But then why are you here?”
“We’re both dead,” she lifted a handful of her white dress and daubed her face with it. No man deserved to see her weakness. “Claire and Drew killed me.”
“Then we should kill them back. They’re Justin’s friends anyway, and that ungrateful brat
needs to be taught a lesson, once and for all. I raised that boy, and he turned on me, and I won’t never forget or forgive.”
Lust for revenge crept into Iulia, tinting everything red. She knew what to do. “I know how to find and deal with all of them. Pledge to assist me and I’ll make sure you get your justice.”
Dwight stepped in front of her and cracked his knuckles in a gross display of dominance. “You tell me how, then we’ll talk about pledges.”
Iulia resisted the urge to glance at the floral pattern. “No. That’s not how this will work. You swear to me that you’ll do what I ask, and I’ll swear to use my knowledge to gain your revenge.” And her own. She’d find a new way to make the seal with herself at the center. This uncouth man would be destroyed by her efforts, and so would Claire and Kay. Drew might survive. Justin wouldn’t.
Dwight crossed his arms and said nothing for several moments. Then he crouched in front of her with a grim sneer. He lacked the grace of a Knight, but had the right idea. “If that’s what it takes, then yeah. I pledge to help you. But you better be telling the truth. If you’re lying to me, I’m gonna knock you into next week.”
She met his gaze without fear. He’d played into her hands perfectly and she knew now how to manage him. “I swear it, Dwight. I want nothing more than to see all of them dead by our hands.”
The stone walls rippled. Iulia checked the floral pattern and saw it had grown only a small amount. She’d won, or at least kept him from winning. As she watched, the color and detail drained upward, leaving white mist in its wake.
Dwight sprang to his feet and held up his fists as if he could punch the mist into submission. Yes, this man had definitely come from a line of Knights. “What’s happening?”
“We’ve forged our path, and now we return to Earth to haunt the living. A few, specific souls among the living.”
Once the entire room had been replaced by mist, the fog dispersed from their feet upward. Iulia faced two lines of standing gravestones in a square of grass surrounded by evergreen trees. Drizzle fell through her from drab, gray clouds. She immediately noticed the lack of scent. Graves were supposed to smell of damp earth, grief, and lost potential.
Four stones bore the name Evans, all from the late nineteenth century. Two resonated with her, marking her bloodline.
“Corwin was my ancestor,” Dwight said. “Six or seven generations back. He and his parents were the first Evanses in Portland.”
Iulia saw no sign of Dwight. Instead, she lifted her hand and saw silver mist. A second outline of light gray surrounded her hand with the shape of a man’s much larger one. None of her experience with ghosts before the Palace seal explained this phenomenon. She supposed they’d stalemated in the dominance fight, or came close enough to have a shared truce instead of a master-slave situation.
She had the dominant personality and he had the dominant physicality. This curious outcome required consideration. But not now.
“Yes. Never mind him, though. He’s irrelevant. We have to gather power, then we can deal with Justin. It will take time, but we have plenty of that.”
“Just tell me what to do, Iulia. It’ll get done.”
Iulia grinned and took him hunting.
Legal
Ghost Is the New Normal is a work of fictionwork of fiction sited in a fictional version of the Pacific Northwest. People, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s mind or used fictitiously. No endorsement of any kind should be inferred by existing locations or organizations used within it.
No horses, dogs, teenagers, or dragons were harmed in the making of this book. The author makes no claims regarding the fate of ants and cockroaches she encountered.
Copyright © 2017 by Lee French
All Rights Reserved
ISBN: 978-1-944334-15-4
About the Author
Lee French lives in Olympia, WA with two kids, two bicycles, and too much stuff. She is an avid gamer and member of the Myth-Weavers online RPG community, where she is known for her fondness for Angry Ninja Squirrels of Doom. In addition to spending too much time there, she also trains year-round for the one-week of glorious madness that is RAGBRAI, has a nice flower garden with one dragon and absolutely no lawn gnomes, and tries in vain every year to grow vegetables that dont get devoured by neighborhood wildlife.
She is an active member of the Northwest Independent Writers Association, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, and the Olympia Area Writers Coop, as well as being one of two Municipal Liaisons for the NaNoWriMo Olympia region and a founding member of Clockwork Dragon Books.
Other Books by Lee French
Spirit Knights
YA urban paranormal adventure
Girls Can’t Be Knights
Backyard Dragons
Ethereal Entanglements
Ghost Is the New Normal
The Maze Beset Trilogy
Superheroes in denim
Dragons In Pieces
Dragons In Chains
Dragons In Flight
In the Ilauris setting
Standalone fantasy tales
Damsel In Distress
Shadow & Spice (short story)
Al-Kabar
The Greatest Sin series
Epic fantasy co-authored with Erik Kort
The Fallen
Harbinger
Moon Shades
Illusive Echoes
Darkside Seattle
Cyberpunk as L.E. French
Street Doc
Mechanic (coming in 2017)
Fixer (coming in 2017)
Non-fiction
with Jeffrey Cook
Working the Table: An Indie Author’s Guide to Conventions
Anthologies Into the Woods: a fantasy anthology
Merely This and Nothing More: Poe Goes Punk
Unnatural Dragons: a science fiction anthology
Missing Pieces VII
Artifact
What We’ve Unlearned: English Class Goes Punk (coming Spring 2017)
Bridges (coming November 2017)
Table of 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
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Epilogue
