Electric Blue

Electric Blue

by

Jamieson Wolf

ISBN: 978-1-927476-77-2

Books We Love Ltd

(Electronic Book Publishers)

192 Lakeside Greene Drive
 

Chestermere, Alberta T1X 1C2

http://bookswelove.net

Copyright 2012 by Janet Lane Walters

Cover Art Copyright 2012 by Michelle Lee

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication can be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

Chapter One

A New House

September, 2004

Poppy looked at the sun shining through the living room windows and shivered. She could see her breath in front of her. August was still holding on fast, the sun was bright and hot and fall looked a million miles away. And it was minus ten degrees Celsius in her house.

Alicia and Poppy had moved into the House on Harrow Hill at David's urging. There was a presence still in the house that needed to be guarded, watched. David's late husband, Jethro, had come back from the dead on Valentine's Day. Poppy remembered that day, would continue to remember it. It was fused into her head, burnt into her brain. The things she had seen that day had changed her.

It seemed to stretch on in her mind, bending and shaping itself. Always replaying the same images. Jethro, standing there, Roz and Chip bloody and almost dead, the light that had shot out of her hands that had blinded Jethro. How Jethro's mother, Anna, had taken her son in the end, sucked him dry. She didn't want to think about that now. The light was something she didn't have an answer to and that bothered her more than she would let on.

It was David's theory that the house itself was alive, not a mere ghost rattling chains. Poppy could believe it. Since the moment they had moved in, the house had been playing practical jokes on them. She would find her panties on lampshades, her bra in the microwave. Alicia had once found a potted fern inside the toilet. How it got there was anyone’s guess, as no one actually seen the house do anything. But they could feel it. It was almost as if there was a hum around them, a cocoon. For some odd reason, it made her feel safe. The house never caused them harm; it just had a terrible sense of humor.

She looked up at the ceiling. "Hey!" she called up. "Could we make it a little warmer in here? It's not summer anymore, you know." There was a sigh from the house and a gentle sound of laughter. The house began to warm up until Poppy could no longer see her breath. "That's better," she said. She looked around the living room, bored with her novel that sat on the large oak coffee table in front of her. She was seated in a deep, brown leather couch. Large picture windows dominated the front wall and painting and portraits hung on all three remaining walls. The ceilings were high, at least ten feet. Poppy sometimes dreamed of floating up on the ceiling, like Mary Poppins. "Hey," she said, "a girl can dream can’t she?"

There were large bookshelves on the wall behind her and on either side of the entrance to the dining room, and little end tables with Tiffany lamps and knickknacks galore. Everything had come with the house; Honey and Jose hadn't wanted a thing from it after the events that had happened last Halloween. Having a ghost try to possess your body, as Anna had tried to do to Honey, would put anyone off a place.

Alicia and Poppy were comfortable here. It was an odd house, but they didn't mind. Oddness suited both of them. And they didn't mind the house so much;  it was easy to live with a house that might be alive when you already lived with a ghost.

Moe, a friend of David's who had rented a room in the house across from him, had died on Valentine's Day when Jethro decided to send them a message. Thankfully, with a little faith and magic, Alicia's friend Lucia had brought him back. There was a catch though: he could only live in this House on Harrow Hill. The high concentration of supernatural energy kept him alive. As alive as a dead person could be, that is.

Despite her neat living arrangements, however, she was a little bored with her life. She felt as if she was drifting in a world that didn't really understand her. She had been working at the same art gallery, Spandoosh - Fine Art and Design, for years and still hadn't been promoted from floor girl. She wanted to do her own work, not sell other people’s.

"I wish something would happen to me," Poppy said out loud. "I'll be bored out of my skull otherwise.”

“Be careful what you wish for," Alicia said, coming into the living room with two cups of tea and a plate of cookies and plopping herself down beside Poppy. "You might just get what you want."

* * * * *

Poppy kissed Alicia on the cheek as she sat down. "I hate when you say things like that." Alicia looked at her.

"Like what?" She reached for her tea and took a small sip.

"Oh, I don't know, all that mumbo jumbo stuff.”

“That wasn't mumbo jumbo, that was an old wives’ tale. Didn't your mother ever tell you that one?”

“The closest thing my mother got to a wives’ tale was `If you gotta rubber and you're not doing it, they make handy water balloons.'” Alicia laughed, spilling tea. “My mother wasn't much for motherly advice.”

“No kidding," Poppy said. "You got to stop calling it that, though.”

“What?”

“Magic is not mumbo jumbo. It's an energy." At this, the house began to emit large sparks from the outlets around the room. The lights dimmed and they were treated to a mini light show in the partial darkness.

"Nice," Alicia said, "but it needs more oomph." The house responded by making the sparks larger—small bits of lightning that made the shadows disappear.

"You shouldn't encourage the house like that," Poppy said.

"I thought you said it was all mumbo jumbo."

Poppy smiled. "I stand corrected." They both fell into silence for a while, enjoying the morning sun and the quietness in the house. Sometimes, they would hear chains and moans, typical of a haunted house. Sometimes Poppy heard laughter and sometimes nothing. She relished the quiet in this house, breathed it in. The quiet was a welcome break from all the noise.

Poppy and Alicia fell into silence more often lately. Rather than make them further apart, their shared silences seemed only to make them stronger, to pull them together. It was as if, Poppy thought, they didn't need to say anything to each other, like they could communicate with their minds what they were feeling. Considering that she lived in a haunted house, this wasn't such an odd idea.

"When are you working today?" Alicia asked after the silence had stretched on for a few moments.

"One to four. It's only a half shift today.”

“At least you won't have to see the Dragon Lady today.”

“Yeah, that's some consolation at least."

Poppy had worked at Spandoosh since its opening five years ago. Unfortunately for her, Daphne McGowan owned the place. Poppy worked on canvases, mostly doing abstract stuff with mixed media: pencils mixed with charcoal, pastel mixed with paint. Objects from around the house were also known to find their way on to Poppy's canvases. Two years ago, Daphne had come to Poppy asking her to do a show. It had been a dream come true for Poppy; she had had her work displayed in galleries, but never had she had her own show.

She worked for months preparing canvases. Her show had had a theme: The Goddess Within. All of her friends had loved it; the critics trashed it. One woman had called it the most awful thing she had seen since the Second World War. Poppy had been crushed and had lain in depression for months, existing only for work and for sleep. After the show, however, working conditions became worse. Daphne now considered her a fraud. In her opinion, if Poppy had been a true artist, her show would have done better. Poppy resisted the urge to point out that it had been Daphne who had given her the show in the first place.

Poppy still painted, still did her art. It called to her. Alicia called it her magic and Poppy agreed with her. She felt more whole whenever she worked, more connected with the world through ties she could not see but could only feel. She still worked at the gallery as it was all she knew how to do. Daphne and Poppy barely tolerated each other so it was always a relief to work her short shift alone, without the commanding gaze of the Dragon Lady. Alicia had given her the nickname after she had met her earlier this year.

"What are your plans for today?" Poppy asked.

"Not much; we have some new shipments of crystals, some Book of Shadows to unpack and I get to work on the new Fall display." Alicia owned and ran Strange and Unusual, an occult shop specializing in anything bizarre. Alicia took her Paganism seriously and had made a living out of it. "I'm getting a new employee later on this week."

"New employee? I thought
Orlando
was working there already." David's partner, Orlando, had taken on a part time job at the store to supplement his income from his fortune telling business. He didn't really need to, he was loaded. Fortune telling was very lucrative. Besides, Alicia enjoyed having an old friend around; it made the work day easier.

"Yeah, but this is more a favour to a friend. You know Lucia?"

Poppy nodded. "How can I forget? Bringing someone back from the dead isn't something everyone can do."

"Well, she got fired from her last job, soooo. . . .”

“Could be fun," Poppy said. There was a loud POP from behind them. They both turned to see Moe pass through the wall. When he was through, they watched as his skin resumed form and he became solid again. "Morning ladies," he said. "You might not want to hear this, but we have a problem."

Poppy rolled her eyes. "What kind of problem?”

“There's blood all over the walls in the kitchen. . . ."