Occult Suspense for Mothers Boxset: The Nostalgia Effect by EJ Valson and Mother's by Michelle Read (2 ebooks for one price)

by EJ Valson

  “Don’t ever wear your hair up again,” I scolded. “You look amazing.”

  Oh Erin, she thought. Your ability to be sassy in such a state is one of your best qualities.

  “You look awful,” she mused aloud.

  I tried to grin at her, but wasn’t able to make my face do what I wanted.

  “What happened to Charlotte?” I suddenly demanded, trying to get up. “Is she alright?”

  “Lay down, Erin. She’s fine.” Azura put her hand on my chest and pushed me back down. “Be still.”

  “Tell me why she was screaming,” I ordered again. My voice was shaky, and I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to know. The image of her writhing flashed into my frustratingly clouded mind.

  As she cleared as much blood from my face as she could with the damp cloth she produced, Azura explained that Charlotte was sure to heal much more quickly than I would. It seemed that once the group had reached the small cavern we were now gathered in, Sherry immediately found her. Together, with Sherry nearby to keep her focus from wavering, Charlotte used her ability to take another person’s pain upon herself to save me. To save me from the brunt of the attack I was facing miles and miles away.

  Because of Charlotte, my dearest friend, I felt none of the many bones that were breaking. None of the bruises that now covered my body. She had taken them all upon herself; every skipped heartbeat, every ounce of fear – she was taking them slowly away from me. And while I looked like death warmed over, I only felt sore. Very……very……..very sore, but not in excruciating pain like I should have been. She felt it all willingly, for me. My throat tightened painfully and I wept for my friend. I would never, never know the pain she had endured for me, and I didn’t know how I could ever repay her for that.

  Never before had Charlotte been able to stretch her abilities so far, but Azura explained that, like an adrenaline rush, her fear and her love for me pushed her strengths beyond what she believed possible.

  I blinked to clear my eyes, which was useless, and looked at Azura. I searched her mind and listened more closely to her account of the small huddle of women that surrounded my suffering friend. Some of them were sobbing for Charlotte and her screams, but just as many of them were sick at the thought of losing me—knowing that I surely couldn’t survive whatever was happening to me.

  Losing me?

  All this time I was certain they wanted nothing to do with me.

  I turned, stiffly, to Azura. Still marveling at her beauty that had been so cleverly hidden behind her silly bun and ridiculous glasses, I had an idea. Well, it was really more of a curious desire.

  “May I?” I asked childishly.

  She looked confused, but only for a moment, and gave me a sly smile.

  “Of course,” she answered, allowing my morbid curiosity to be indulged.

  I closed my eyes and relaxed as best as I could. Concentrating on the touch of her fingers as she laced her hand in mine, I crawled inside her mind while she recounted her role in the evening’s events.

  She began outside the room that we had all been held hostage in, as soon as the doors had been closed behind her. I listened as the two burly guards that had escorted us to the room agreed to take her to see Gabriel, as long as she was completely cooperative.

  Once the door was closed, she quickly and easily grabbed the forearm of the guard to her right with one small hand, jerking him forward violently. In the same movement, she put her right hand on his shoulder and forced him to the ground. He was thrown to the floor so hard that he seemed to have the wind knocked out of him, and immediately curled into a ball.

  The second guard, having barely enough time to even look stunned because she had moved so quickly, began balling up his fists. He would have been a fool not to expect Azura to try something, but he was probably ready for mind games and negotiating rather than brute force.

  Just before the first guard had his face slammed unforgivingly into the concrete, Azura craned her neck around to bring the second man into view. With his fists tightened and his legs moving into a more confrontational stance, he raised his arm to strike.

  His attack was quick, but Azura was quicker. She used the force she gained from throwing the first guard to the ground to twist her back and throw two powerful kicks to his jaw, sending him to the ground as well. With the momentum her legs had acquired from striking him (first with her left foot, then with her right), she allowed her body to continue spinning full circle until her right elbow found the cheek of the first guard. Her elbow bounced his skull downward so hard that he was sent neatly into unconsciousness. All four strikes took less than two seconds to complete, and left two very limp guards lying face down on the dusty concrete floor.

  As Azura turned to sprint down the hallway, pulling her glasses off and tossing them on to the small pile of guards, I pulled out of her memory – chilled to the bone at the thought of someone so proper and uptight packing so much power.

  “Let’s get you home,” Azura suggested quietly.

  I closed my eyes.

  Home.

  After Azura mended the rest of my wounds, we began our journey home.

  “What will John and everyone else think?” I questioned. “We’ve been gone all night.”

  “Have you?” Azura asked.

  “Mmmm. Yes?”

  Charlotte turned in her seat toward the back of the Jeep.

  “Jane helped us with that,” she said.

  “The librarian?”

  “Yes,” Charlotte smiled. “She can manipulate time.”

  Cool, I thought. Why not? Enough had happened in the last twenty four hours that I was likely to believe anything at this point.

  I looked in the seat next to me and saw that my cell phone was laying in it. I turned it on and checked the time.

  Eleven twenty. I chuckled.

  “I’ve been out for coffee, then?”

  Charlotte grinned. “Tell him we had a nice time, okay?”

  “R-i-i-i-ight,” I chortled. “Maybe we should stop and actually get some on the way home. I could go for a cup . . . or twelve.”

  EIGHTEEN

  A few weeks later, Christmas was upon us. My favorite time of year. It wasn’t a white Christmas like I’d hoped, just icy and nasty. It didn’t matter, though. To me, it was still magical.

  Over the break, I put all of my energy into decorating the house and making homemade gifts with Violet. Every year, Violet and I baked salt dough ornaments for everyone on both sides of the family. It was an inexpensive, yet personal, way to do something special for everyone. Once they were finally dried, painted, and strung with ribbon, we gathered them up and wrapped them.

  After Vy went to bed that night, I took out the small tray of ornaments I had made myself. One for Charlotte, one for Claire, Sherry, Elizabeth, Jane, Danna, and everyone else at school.

  They were each shaped into hearts and covered in gold glitter. And each one had a small paper tag on it that read: Thank you for your heart of gold.

  I truly appreciated each one of them, and felt like we all had a special little secret that we shared which bonded us together. It wasn’t that we were super strong, or uncommonly fast, or could read minds; but that we were always there to look out for each other. Even Elizabeth.

  Though she still didn’t care for me, a fact made clear by my constantly being able to see her thoughts, she at least pared down the loathing a little. I tried my best to never peer into her mind and chose to pretend, instead, that she could tolerate me with ease. We owed each other our lives, but the resentment she had cultivated all year was hard for her to let go of.

  Her reason for disliking me now was that I could read her mind. She felt very invaded. Though I assured her time and time again that I had no desire to know what she was thinking, it still bothered her that I could. It was the only reason she had for not liking me, and she held on to it bitterly.

  The Saturday morning before Christmas, I awoke uneasily and unable to get back to sleep. John was still sle
eping soundly, and looked so comfortable that I decided not to wake him. Instead, I headed downstairs and made a cup of coffee. For fun, I added chocolate syrup, whipped cream, and drizzled the top with more syrup. I could have charged four dollars for it at the bistro down the road, it looked so good.

  After getting dressed and pulling my hair back in a messy bun, I grabbed my mug and headed for the door. On my way out, I picked up one of the neatly wrapped ornaments on the kitchen table. Sighing lightly and hoping my gift would be received well, I made my way across the street. Elizabeth answered the door quickly and, as usual, was the picture of pretty. Leave it to her to have her hair and makeup done before seven. She smiled forcefully and opened the door, showing me inside.

  What does she want? She was thinking.

  I contained a smile and walked past her through the door. Apparently I didn’t contain my grin well enough, because she scoffed and shut the door with more force than was necessary. She regained her composure quickly, though, and spun on her heel to face me. With a trademark flip of her hair over her shoulder she smiled again.

  “What brings you here so early? I thought you were a late sleeper.” Her new favorite way to show her distaste for me was to talk down to me. To do her best to make me feel lazy, nosy, or otherwise incompetent. I thought it was funny, especially since I knew what she was really thinking.

  “Usually I am,” I replied, ignoring her attempt at insolence. “But I wanted to bring you this.” I produced the small box from behind my back and waited. Her cheeks flushed – the reaction I was hoping for – and she was speechless. She had spent so much time and energy on finding new ways to find me insufferable, that she never once thought we might have a shot at being friends. But for a moment, a vision of the two of us being friends is exactly what flashed through her mind.

  She looked up at me, saw that I knew what she was thinking, and immediately set her face in a frown. She was trying to look impassive— ungrateful, even. But she was feeling horrible for not having made me anything first. I should have thought of that, she was assessing inwardly.

  “I, um, didn’t get you anything,” she finally said.

  “I know,” I answered. “I want you to have it, though. It’s homemade.” That would kill her.

  Of course you know, she thought. You know everything, don’t you?

  I held the small box out further and she took it delicately from my hand. She was wondering what I could have possibly made with my own two hands, since she had never seen me be in any way creative. It certainly wouldn’t impress the PTO Queen, I was sure. Especially if she knew that it took me hours to make. She could have whipped up something much grander in five minutes.

  “Well open it,” I told her.

  She removed the lid and pulled back the tissue paper. Then, she just stared at it. For the longest time . . . she just stared at it.

  “Thank you,” she said softly.

  “Merry Christmas,” I smiled.

  She took the ornament out and replaced the lid. She walked straight over and hung it gently on her tree. And instead of putting it somewhere in the back where no one would see it, she hung it directly in the center. It hung smartly between her own children’s handmade ornaments, which made me want to cry.

  “Please excuse me,” she murmured, wiping her eye as she turned away from me.

  “Of course,” I said, surprised that she had like the gift so much.

  Elizabeth disappeared into her kitchen, and I wandered over to her tree. Although it was as beautiful as a picture from a decorator’s magazine, I noticed that it was covered only in handmade ornaments. I turned a few of them over and read the names of her three boys on the backs, each one with the year it was made. It was a very hodge-podgy assortment, and the whole look was tied together with strings of thick burgundy and gold ribbon wrapped around the entire tree. With the help of the heavy ribbon and gobs of lights, the very personal tree looked exceptionally elegant.

  Several minutes passed, and I ran out of reasons to stand in front of her tree, so I wandered around her living room, eventually taking a seat on her sofa. Not wanting to disturb her stack of cleverly arranged holiday magazines, I just sat there and looked around. When she still didn’t emerge from the kitchen, and I had downed my cup of coffee, I decided to find her and politely make my exit.

  I rounded the corner into the kitchen quietly. There was a man in a sharp business suit sitting at the table with his back turned to me. He was tall, had excellent posture, and was exceedingly intimidating just reading his newspaper.

  Without making a sound, I took another step around the corner, looking for Elizabeth. And there I found her – both hands in the air, waving her arms and trying to tell her husband something. She hadn’t seen me, and I stood petrified, watching her body language. Obviously put out about something, her arms grew more animated and she soon commenced rolling her eyes. Her mouth, however, made no sound. None. It was moving, for sure, but nothing was audible.

  Dumbfounded, I looked back to her husband. He picked up his tall glass and took a drink, looking only for a moment from behind his paper and toward his wife. I was still invisible to the both of them and saw that he nodded, as if he understood something, and went back to reading. Elizabeth carried on in her silent rant. It was at the very least entertaining. She looked like a character in a silent film.

  I now had the common sense not to ask questions of the odd or unexplainable, and this was certainly not a home I felt comfortable in anyway, so I decided to leave. Immediately. Before my busybody mind had time to concoct the most interesting account of what I was seeing. I took a wide, obvious step into the kitchen and cleared my throat.

  I breezed quickly past Elizabeth without looking at her and in the same moment I heard the newspaper drop and her voice begin in the middle of her hushed – but extravagant – story. She immediately dropped her hands to her sides and fiddled with her skirt.

  “Well, I’d better be going,” I sang as I spun around to leave.

  Elizabeth looked positively embarrassed and flustered that she had been interrupted. Her husband, however, looked like he had been slapped in the face. His chocolate eyes were wide behind his thin reading glasses, and his brows were painted as high as a news anchor.

  I smiled and decided to let that be my impression of him. Surprised, with a touch of embarrassment playing on the apples of his cheeks.

  “Merry Christmas,” I giggled as I showed myself out.

  Skipping down the steps and across the Asch’s driveway, I turned one ear back toward the house and listened.

  “How long was she standing there?” her husband was saying.

  “How should I know?” Elizabeth answered curtly, quickly spilling back into whatever she had been saying before.

  I quickly pulled my attention away from her ranting. I fluffed my hair around my face and let out a cold, visible breath. Looking quickly both ways, I trotted across the street. There would be plenty of time to discover all the reasons she didn’t like me. Today, I had Christmas cookies and a kindergartner on Winter Break calling my name.

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  We hope you enjoyed MOTHERS by Michelle Read. Continue on to Read book #2, The Nostalgia Effect by EJ Valson.