It took Donny a few strides to get to the front desk. Where
The night was still young. Lights and torches were just being lit. There were many people in Evergreen Grove’s streets for a small-town festival. Tourists and townsfolk walked through the festive byways. Music and conversation filtered from all directions. Seasonal colors decorated the streets and shop windows. Smells of steaming traditional food and drink came along with the music.It seemed like an assault on Daniel’s senses at first.
Eddie didn’t sleep very well that night he’d been too busy tossing and turning. The nagging reminder of the one-word notes was the culprit. It was four in the morning; he was up and starting the chore of cutting his beard so he could shave. It took far longer than he’d expected, but once satisfied with the results, he slept for a few peaceful hours.If anyone else did this in the name of appeasing a mythical creature, Eddie would have called them crazy. He knew the boggart was real. Eddie had seen a
Jody cursed a blue streak. How dare he lurk there like a creepy stalker, watching her at work. Couldn’t he do his job and go home? Couldn’t he leave her alone? That’s all she wanted. Wasn’t it? She needed to return to her place behind the counter before the Germains noticed. The Germains were coming down the stairs. They were up at an early hour this morning. Now Jody was interested in what they were doing. This was the first time she’d seen Mr. Germain without his face in his phone. That was so out of character. Mrs. Germain looked fabulous as usual. However, her make-up seemed much more low-key. Though the largest change was that they were smiling. Now Jody was interested in the change between the couple.
Greta Johansen watched Eric Devlin from a few shops away. He’d stepped away to answer his cellphone. Eric was now having a very animated. But she couldn’t be sure whether he was angry or pleading with them. This was curious, and she wondered about what situation he found himself in. The stories and experiences they were told as the pair walked through the festival. Greta could barely keep up with all of it. These people were proud
“Oh, great thanks. I have my phone set up to send the photos to the cloud. This laptop can pull them from there.”So, he knew how to fix computers in his sleep. What else di
Daniel and April spent the day in the Sun Room as Daniel sketched and drew ideas. It was love. The man was in a creative flurry. His work for his next showsatcompleted and drying
Jody was searching for a snack and headed to the kitchen. She’d been dreading the next encounter with Billy. After so long. Why would he talk to her?
Greta came back into the library with an equipment case. She set it down on the table. “This is what I have right now. Device One tests for changes in magnetic fields. This place is a dead zone except for spots. We might want to try these.”“So, what does this device do?” Eric asked, picking up a round puck-like object and flipping a switch. Loud static comes from it, a speaker on top of the puck-like object.“It scrolls through radio waves, letting us pick up words we would miss otherwise. We sometimes get messages that come through between the radio stations. This one lets them produce words on the screen that the device can read out to us. They can pick which one they want to communicate through.
Gabby could feel Olivia was close. She slipped away from her nice warm spot in the bed beside Donny and made her way down to the secret room, where Olivia died all those years ago. They’d not truly spoken with each other in quite some time and Gabby missed the comforting feelings she received from her ancestor. As she laid out the things that would help Olivia to come through, Gabby felt something different in the presence that answered. The presence wasn’t that of Olivia. Well, not fully. She wasn’t sure how she knew, but the presence felt male. Her mind instantly went to the possibility that it was Ian. Had Ian come with Olivia, or was he there alone? Something felt different. Gabby wasn’t sure if it was because the spirit was different, or their conversation would be world changing. That’s how it felt for Gabby. Both excitement and dread played with the information her intuition gave her. “Hello? Who’s that? I know it’s not Olivia, the one I summ
Kelly finally dared to approach the house of one of Evergreen Grove’s original witch families. There were originally fourteen. Thirteen were part of a coven that settled here when they formed the town. The fourteenth was a lone practitioner. The Blue Moon Inn was the home of that family. This house, now the doll hospital, was the family home of the one banished witch family. Kelly had found this mentioned within the coven’s history. Hailey’s ancestor placed the curse, and the coven banished then because she would not remove the curse after she placed it. Oddly this conflicted with another section that claimed she placed the curse because she’d been kicked out of the coven. That would probably never be explained or corrected. That lone practitioner was the only one able to take on the curse. She wouldn’t share the responsibility, nor did she accept a place within the coven. She couldn’t end the cursed spell because she didn’t have control of it. What she did
So much happened over the coming months. Winter inched away, leaving Spring in its wake. The paranormal situation settled down, with much of the weaker spirits disappearing almost instantly. Kelly claimed their foothold in the land of the living wasn’t strong enough to stay and the curse was the only thing keeping them here. Spirits like Olivia and Ian, though, they were invested in the living, and they were the ones unwilling to leave. So, as the programs aired on television, the town stood poised to see how the world would react to their way of life. A town haunted and cursed in the idyllic countryside of Canada. A working modern-day ghost town. That was how the show portrayed them, with snapshots of their lives sprinkled with scenes of ghostly activity. Interviews with local artisans defending their way of life and their continued relationships with their ancestors. It pleased Gabby that the show didn’t portray them as all crazies and lunatics. Greta did
Kelly Jones, the owner of Page Turners, came armed with several bags. At first glance, she looked like she was coming to stay. But that wasn’t the case. They needed everything she brought with her for the ceremony. But she carefully stored all her equipment and supplies in what appeared to be custom storage containers.Gabby couldn’t do more than block windows and the section of the back garden from the guests as there wasn’t time to cancel bookings and she wouldn’t evict guests in the middle of their stay. They’d been warned of the haunted nature and odd happenings. This was just another odd happening. Or at least that’s how she instructed Jody to explain it. The guests didn’t need to know exactly what was happening in the back garden on a cold winter evening.Eric stomped his feet to get some warmth into them. This differed from being in the on the island. They couldn’t have any electric current close to this location at the time of the ritual for fear it might affect the results of
Greta and Eric sat, eating their dinner in companionable silence. “So, what do you have in mind to do tonight?” Greta didn’t know what Eric was planning, but if the way the Inn’s restaurant was slowly clearing out and no new patrons were replacing them, she knew he had something planned. “I was thinking we could actually spend some time together without work getting between us. At every turn, it seems to be in our faces. We chase disembodied creatures, but they are acting like a barrier between us.” They were now on dessert, and she’d missed how time had gotten away from them as they’d lingered over their meal. This must have been the first time they’d not shovelled food down in a rush to return to work. Greta was enjoying it. “Did you hire the dining room for the evening?” Greta wasn’t stupid. There were only two other tables occupied beyond theirs, and this was a time when the dining room would hop with diners. “I may have. Look, if I tried to get you to
Eric entered the dining room with several books and papers. He dropped them down at the table where Greta ate and searched the internet while she could connect to it. The struggle to get onto the internet and stay connect was a nightmare. Now, with the uptick in paranormal activity, it wasn’t just spotty internet, but batteries draining at an unnaturally fast rate, and equipment powering down at random. One machine used to make spirit voices available for them to hear, appeared to become possessed by several spirits that all needed to talk at once. None were interested in taking turn or working with the others. It forced them to shut it down and keep it turned off from then on. Which was no simple task when it would switch itself back on at random or they could say it was the will of the spirits. “I just got back from the bookshop, and she let me look at her private collection of documents on the history of ‘certain’ families in the area. Sure enough, Hailey’s family was conn
Jody put away the last of the laundry and looked around the small apartment. She couldn’t believe with everything going on that Billy insisted she move in with them. She watched Abby run past the bedroom door excitedly because her brother gave her permission to turn on cartoons for a while. This was his day off, but most of it was dealing with the horrific mess his family saddled him with. His mother would have nothing to do with the family. She’d washed her hands of it. That left Billy and Abby to pick up the mess. Between the funeral, police investigation, and the management of the estate after the fire, Jody wasn’t sure what Billy would do with it all. She didn’t feel it was right for her to speak up right now. But he was in the kitchen making dinner tonight for them. He claimed it calmed his nerves. If he hadn’t been at the Inn working when the fire happened, Jody figured they’d be suspects, because they didn’t find the cause of it during the investigation.
Eric found Greta scrolling through the internet looking for information. This was her job for the show. It was her duty to research these things. But he didn’t envy her, her job. Much of this wasn’t easy to find, and she’d be up late contacting people or searching the internet. Digging in old archives or libraries. “Have you found anything yet?” Eric came into the upstairs library and spoke to Greta. He’d just finished retesting the equipment that appeared to malfunction on them. Also, he had a message from Hailey for Greta. “No, but I’m sure whatever is bothering Eddie and Hailey, someone kept it in that cabinet. When they moved it, the seal broke and now it’s roaming about probably angry about being sealed up like that for this long. We don’t know if they have more to be angry about, either. Has Hailey decided if we can unlock that book, we found? I don’t want to open it if she’s not comfortable with it. But I truly believe it will tell us a lot about what
Liam walked the streets of Evergreen Grove with Olivia. The evening was beautiful and surprisingly busy. People walk by them, taking little to no notice of them. However, he could see they weren’t all living. Several clearly dead people walked by them. One or two even acknowledge their presence. The bookshop was still owned by a witch, who could see the dead and communicate with them. Her cat was interesting. Liam could see that it wasn’t a normal animal. It’s spirit was far too complex for a common animal. Then there was the wolf, or man. It was a creature with two forms. But it was cursed. But there in the bookshop now sat several ancestors of the witch, many attempting to have her banish the wolf-man creature. They didn’t stay long enough to communicate before they were moving on. “I feel a little so