My amazing parents were Beth and John Howe. I was five when dad died in a car accident while coming home from work. I didn’t remember much about him, but the few memories I had were happy, and I cherished having that piece of him. We moved in here after that and became a house full of witches.
Mom’s death had hit me hard. I was ten and she climbed a ladder to hang some holiday lights. A freak bolt of lightning had hit her. She was dead before she even fell off the ladder.
Shaking out of the memory, I backed into the kitchen, closing the door to the sunroom and my memories with it. Then I continued through the rest of the house to finish uncovering everything. Before heading upstairs, I grabbed my bags from Dia, my very tired car. One more thing I’d probably have to replace soon.
I lugged my bag of clothing up the stairs and into my old bedroom. Somehow, I couldn’t bring myself to use Aunt Winnie’s. All her things were still in there, for one thing, and it still smelled faintly like her verbena perfume. I wanted to keep it that way because it felt like she was still with me.
My old bed would do fine.
As I looked into Aunt Winnie’s bedroom on my way to mine, a tinkling crash behind me made me jump nearly out of my skin. I whirled around to find one of the many, many knickknacks had fallen off of the bureau lining one wall of the large hallway.
Glaring at the trinket, I wasn't sure what I expected it to do. A song and dance, maybe. If it did, I was getting back in Dia and hauling tail. Magical house that wasn’t so magical anymore, was one thing. But animated objects singing and dancing? No way. No how. My sanity couldn’t take it.
I was sure it was probably from all the open windows and the vibrations of the house settling from having someone move around inside it after a year. What else could it be? No ghosts were around. I’d know. My other powers—that I would not think about—would’ve alerted me if that was the case.
I brushed it off and finished settling in for the night. It was nothing.
Chapter Two
Twirling my finger in a circular motion, I pushed a small bit of magic into the air and smiled as tiny tornadoes whipped around the room, gathering up dust from the floor, shelves, and even off of the walls and pulled it to the center of the room. Then, I conjured a larger tornado to collect the pile the smaller ones created. I opened the door and ushered the larger cyclone out and all the dirt with it.
“Thank you kindly,” I told the magic as it moved outside. The tornado made my hair twirl at the end, acknowledging my thanks. Smiling, I moved room to room, loving the feel and smell of the brisk fall air drifting in from the opened windows. I repeated the spell, dusting each room and evicting the grime out of each window. Since I’d removed all the sheets earlier, this trip through the house was all about taking note of what needed to be done. I’d already noticed several repairs that were needed. Not to mention the furnishings were too obsolete for the buying market.
But I loved the old, outdated Victorian.
So would the family that bought her.
As I went along, I conjured a notepad and pen and with a little magic animated them, so they’d follow me and make a list of things I needed to get at the store. I conjured another set to make notes of repairs needed.
All this drama, the sudden action of coming home and doing all this had been making me want to get my butt back in a chair. Something about being in this house and in Shipton woke up my muse. For the first time in five years, story ideas were buzzing in my head.
After the supply list was complete, I decided to get the office set up since it was clear that being home had ignited my creative juices. I hadn’t written any significant amount of words since I moved away. Then nothing since Clay died.
Must’ve been the salty air.
My office was exactly how I left it, as if it were waiting on my return. I wasn’t staying but didn’t mean I couldn’t use it while I was here.
Once I cleared out the dust and laughed at the old typewriter, I set up my laptop and the few supplies I’d brought with me. Which included the million notebooks and my Post-It notes stash. I may have a little notebook hoarding problem.
It was well after the witching hour and I realized I’d never made it to the store. Once I hit my office chair and turned on my laptop, the voices in my head chatted about all the adventures they were going on and words started flowing. The next thing I knew, it was pitch black outside and I had four chapters written on a book I hadn’t even realized was in me.
Hot Damn.
Grinning, I sat back in my comfy chair and read back over what I’d written, surprised to find it as good as I’d hoped it would be as I’d typed. An abundance of pride and ambition filled me. I haven’t written like that since before I met Clay. Even after we were married, I wrote and published, taking a break from it all to raise Wallie. I returned to it when he went to school because I didn't need to work. Clay made enough money, so we lived comfortably. My royalties were my mad money. Not that the money was mad, it was happy to be spent as much as I was to spend it.
However, it’d been a long time since I sat and wrote four effing chapters without my ADD kicking in. And all in one sitting!
I stretched with my arms reaching for the high ceiling, a loud groan spilling from my lips, then I searched my office. There was something I was going to do but I’d been too involved in the new world I created to be bothered. A noise.
At some point during my amazing marathon writing sprint, I’d heard something fall somewhere in the house. I’d been so into my story that I ignored it. Now that I was pulled out of the new imaginary world, I was curious to what it was, if anything. All my life the house had a magic to it that made it alive, animated was what Winnie called it. It made noises often just to get attention. However, there was no magic left in the house. I had all the windows open and none of them had screens, so it was either a random animal sneaking in or the wind knocking something over.
In the back of my mind, my subconscious brain was whispering that it was a bad idea. Things always ended badly for the lone female in the horror movies that went seeking out what made the unknown noise. Well, I wasn't just any lone female. I was Ava Harper, witch with a dark side. I wasn’t afraid to use it.
Okay, that was a lie. I hated my necromancer powers. They didn’t define me.
Plus, I wasn’t in a horror movie. If I were, I would have been the first to die.
Deciding on taking my chances with the dangers that might or might not be waiting for me, I moved through the downstairs of the Victorian. My bare feet were silent as I checked each room. I didn’t find anything that looked out of the ordinary. Strange. I’d distinctly heard something break. Unless I was going insane, which could be the real reason my muse woke up.
That was highly possible.
Giving up on finding the source of the noise that I was beginning to think was a product of my overactive imagination, I crossed the large open living room set on getting back to the book I started. About halfway back to my office a grey blur leaped at me from the stairs like some humongous furry bat. I screamed but managed to catch the large beast in both hands.
“Snoozles! Excuse me Mr. Snoozerson, You can’t jump out at me like that. I’m old and could have a heart attack.” I adjusted the twenty pound, three feet long, Maine coon in my arms to keep from dropping him. Seriously the cat was the size of a large dog. Except for great Danes. Snooze was more like a fluffy basset hound. Only he meowed and had claws.