Haunting Me (An Angel Falls Book 3) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Haunting Me

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Haunt

  Chapter One: Hunting

  Chapter Two: Soggy Cheerios

  Chapter Three: Regrets

  Chapter Four: Awaiting a Shadow

  Chapter Five: The New and the Old

  Chapter Six: Power versus Food

  Chapter Seven: Ghosts of the Past

  Chapter Eight: The First Date of the Rest of Our…?

  Chapter Nine: Eviction

  Chapter Ten: Vital

  Chapter Eleven: Short-Lived Expectations

  Chapter Twelve: Innocence

  Chapter Thirteen: Fairy Jail

  Chapter Fourteen: Lessons Begin

  Chapter Fifteen: Weapons of Choice

  Chapter Sixteen: The Strike

  Chapter Seventeen: All’s Fair

  Chapter Eighteen: Messages for the Misled

  Chapter Nineteen: A Life for a Life

  Chapter Twenty: Tribulations

  Chapter Twenty-one: Twist in Fate

  Chapter Twenty-two: Unbalanced

  Chapter Twenty-three: A Beautiful Curse

  Chapter Twenty-four: Loose Ends Tied

  Chapter Twenty-five: Water Witches

  Chapter Twenty-six: The Earth, the Sky, and the Stars

  Other Works Available

  About the Author

  Read a Preview of The Night Medicine

  On the Back Cover

  Haunting Me

  An Angel Falls – Book 3

  Jody A. Kessler

  Copyright

  © 2015 by Jody A. Kessler

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator.”

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  ISBN: 978-0-9862406-7-6

  E book ISBN-13: 978-0-9862406-6-9

  Edited by

  Melissa A. Robitille

  Cover Art & Design by

  Laura Gordon

  www.thebookcovermachine.com

  Ebooks are not transferable. They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  First Edition 2015

  Dedication

  Always Nancy and John

  Haunt

  Verb

  1. to visit often : FREQUENT

  to continually seek the company of

  2. to have a disquieting or harmful effect on : TROUBLE

  to recur constantly and spontaneously

  3. to appear habitually as a ghost

  Chapter One: Hunting

  Juliana

  “The five elements are Earth, Air, Fire, Water, and Ether (spirit or self). When you immerse yourself in nature the balance of the elements unite, bringing harmony to you and all that surrounds you…”

  Urgghh, I groan. This isn’t it either! I replace the book on the shelf and look at the measly few I haven’t already browsed for their content. It had been a crapshoot to even look at the Wiccan books, but I wasn’t having any luck finding what I wanted anywhere else. I should have listened to myself and stayed away from this section. Accusations of being a witch have brought me nothing but misery. Ashley Johnson died after accusing me and Corrine…well, Corrine turned out all right in the end, but the journey was torture. All it would take is one person who knows me seeing me perusing the Wiccan or Pagan books — the rumors would be set ablaze like a witch at the stake. Bad joke, I know.

  I back away from the bookshelf and my shoulders droop with resignation. From the corner of my eye, I see movement and turn to look. There isn’t anyone. I would have sworn someone was there. My gaze shifts to the window, wondering if I caught the passing shadow of a bird or a tree branch blowing in the breeze. There’s a stuffed purple chair below the window for reading. I trudge over to it and plop down, trying to unravel the knots I’ve created inside my brain. Closing my eyes, I rub my temples, making small circles with the pads of my fingers. Wiccan, metaphysical, new age, Pagan, Druid, self-help, aliens, sacred geometry. My head is reeling. Why did I even come here in the first place? A little research on angels and the afterlife has wasted my entire afternoon and all I have to show for my efforts is a new fixation on the possibility of having an out-of-body experience that can only be remedied by seven witches wielding amethyst crystals while chanting an incantation backwards during the Blood Moon. This is not what I needed today.

  My brother, Jared, is at home with the Angel of Death, Marcus, hovering around him. I should be with him, not here searching for answers I’m not going to find. And, my first real date with my incredibly cute, perplexing, and unearthly angel boyfriend is tonight. Nathaniel’s responsibilities and duties as an angel don’t exactly allow him to take off whenever he wants, but he said he’ll pick me up later at my house. A shiver of anticipation runs down the back of my neck and tickles my spine. He wants to date me. Me! Like we’re just a couple of ordinary college students hanging out. I know it’s not a perfect situation. He’s a celestial being, but he gets me. He makes me feel alive, even if he isn’t. I like trying to figure out the puzzle of this connection between us. Besides, no girl in their right mind could possibly walk away from those smoky gray eyes of his. Least of all, me.

  I hear movement nearby and open my eyes. A store employee is shelving a book.

  “Not finding what you’re looking for?” she asks as if she already knows I’ve struck out.

  She’s tall and willowy and her clothes appear to flow around her in a sea of blues and greens.

  “Unfortunately, I’m not,” I say, rising from the chair, ready to leave the Midnight Sage New Age Boutique.

  “Can I help you find something? A particular book or author?” she offers.

  “I think I’ve looked at everything.”

  “Well, in that case, don’t forget to check the Beg, Borrow, and Steal cupboard by the front door. There are usually some books in there. You can take what you want, leave a donation, or borrow and return. It’s remarkable the treasures people leave behind,” she says, turning back to the shelf in front of her.

  “Umm, okay, thanks,” I say, and squeeze past her, heading for the stairs.

  Trotting up the squeaky old staircase to the main level of the converted old house, I decide I’ve had enough of this woo-woo metaphysical-ness for one day and intend on walking straight to my car, leaving my unanswered questions on the back burner. As I’m about to open the front door I catch a glimpse of a shimmering beaded curtain with a colorful painted sign above it that reads, “Beg, Borrow, & Steal Cupboard.” Below that in smaller print, “Honoring the Karma system since 1991.”

  I pull my hand away from the doorknob and walk over to the cupboard, intrigued. Maybe my last name, Crowson, affects my personality more than I’ve ever given it credit for. Crows love glistening trinkets and shiny baubles, and I can’t walk away from
this beaded curtain. I raise my hand and let the smooth iridescent glass beads play in the halogen lights of the shop. I duck my head through the tinkling curtain and enter. Beyond the beads and through a dark painted entryway, I pull open a door and step into what might have once been a storage room beneath a winding staircase.

  It’s cozy and dark and totally surprising. Someone had a grand time painting this space with lots of deep purple, teal, and black. A shadowy forest looms on one wall and a dragon flies past the moon on another. A Victorian shaded floor lamp casts a dim light into the little room and another purple armchair offers a seat as you search through the miscellaneous boxes and shelves. There’s an eclectic mix of books on the first bookcase. I find everything from gardening and candle making to identifying constellations and werewolves, but nothing on angels or the afterlife. I keep searching. On the top shelf is a gently used scarf and hat collection and in the corner to the left is a bunch of rolled up and tattered posters. The other shelves are covered with tchotchkes and what looks like an entire print run of a magazine called They Do Exist. I raise my eyebrows with skepticism at the cheesy drawing of an alien with a bulbous head and enormous eyes on the cover.

  One final look around before I leave this curious little nook and I see it. Half hidden in the shadow of the chair is a cardboard box full of books. I settle onto the cushioned seat and slide the box over to my feet. Immediately, I feel like I’ve found something interesting at last. Or at least closer to what I’ve been looking for. The book on top is titled, Reincarnation in the New Age. There are a few works about near death experiences. I get a chill that raises the hair on my arms as I see the last couple of books on the bottom. Feast of Fire and Flame — I don’t even want to touch that one — and lastly, Navigating Life, Death, and the Afterlife. I grab the one about the afterlife, and have a fleeting moment of doubt about my search. Is it wrong to want to know more about what happens after we die? Or is it only wrong because I want to know how to manipulate life after death?

  I’m mulling over my secret motivations when I slap my palm to my forehead. I’ve lost all track of time! I’m frustrated that I don’t know exactly how late it is, anxious to check on my brother, and beyond pee-in-your-pants excited to see Nathaniel tonight. I hurry to dig a bill out of my pocket and stuff it into the antique bubble gum machine, which is now a donation jar. I tuck the book under my arm and head out of the shop.

  Chapter Two: Soggy Cheerios

  Nathaniel

  The will to live, for most people, is as natural as breathing. There’s no conscious effort in taking your first breath because your body wants to live. In some ways, humans are not so different than any other living thing. To thrive and live, we need nourishment and protection. At the beginning of life, mothers are often the source of these two things, but so is the earth. The ground itself is protection for the seeds and the sky provides the nourishment. If we haven’t grown large enough to sustain life and our source is cut off early, we die, whether we are plant, animal, or human.

  But what happens if the necessities of life are taken away one small piece at a time? What if nourishment — and here I would add emotional sustenance because humans are complicated beings with complicated needs — is deprived slowly, or taken away in irreplaceable chunks? Can humans survive this deprivation?

  I know what can happen. The will to live shifts. The instinctive need to keep going can be overtaken by the power of desire to undo the natural world.

  Today I’m with my third suicide victim. It’s as if my new position in the afterlife is determined to make me suffer as much as these beautiful people had while they were still alive.

  The first of the three was maybe the worst, if only because of his age. He was eleven years old and more sad and angry than any person should ever know in a lifetime. When I found him it was too late to try to save him. The rope was already in place. There was nothing I could do to prevent what happened. When he departed from his life on Earth, he immediately left his body, his family, and his home without looking back. He wanted away from the pain life had given him. His death didn’t ease his suffering, but it did put a stop to the accumulation of new grief and torment. For that reason, I could relate to his need for escape.

  As soon as I passed the boy into the arms of his deceased loved ones in the realms of the afterlife, I found myself standing before a man with a gun to his head. Still shaken by the depressing situation I just left behind, I yelled at the man, “Stop! Wait!” But again, I appeared by his side too late. Their decision to end things must have been extremely sudden because I should have been with them well ahead of time.

  This is why I said that it seems my punishment from the higher-ups for helping Juliana’s brother live another day is to make me suffer along with my new clients. Watching someone take their life is not an experience you want to do even one time, let alone repeatedly.

  Xavier took much longer to leave his home. We stood together and I answered his questions and listened as he told me he needed relief from his mind and felt suicide was the only way he was ever going to find it. We stayed inside his house until his body was examined, covered, and loaded into an ambulance. He told me combat and war had changed him too much and there was no fixing what had broken inside of him. Before I left his side, he said, “It kind of sucks that I had to die to find out everything I was so worked up about, the money problems, the cheating wife, the endless bullshit, none of it even matters.” And I told Xavier, “You’ll get healthy here and find the peace you are seeking.” He seemed to accept my prediction and moved into the afterlife, faintly troubled, but willing to go forward.

  When I left Xavier behind, I had to wonder if I had earned a break from this misery. The task of escorting people to the hereafter was assigned to me when I died at the age of twenty-two. Did I ever imagine I was going to be an angel in my life after death? Hell no!

  All I wanted was to graduate college and get away from my alcoholic parents. After a couple decades of watching people die and helping them adjust to the other side, I made the mistake of helping a client live instead of watching him pass. Okay, so maybe Juliana had been a distraction and I tanked at my job as an Angel of Death, but how was I supposed to let her brother die right in front of her? I couldn’t do it.

  Immediately after saving Jared, I was assigned to these suicidal clients. So far, I’ve helped one of my three new cases live instead of ending their life. The other two, well, I’ve just shared those experiences with you.

  My one successful case, Corrine, is the girl who found the will to live. I have to confess I wasn’t the one responsible for helping her. Juliana, my sole purpose for existing, accomplished what I was unable to. She reunited Corrine with her mother while I did little more than watch. And in a messed up, twisted, soul-stealing kerfuffle, Juliana and I eliminated the main source of Corrine’s agitation — her demon-wielding step-father. But it’s because of Juliana’s determination and willpower that I’m able to continue as an angel at all. She saved me from spending eternity in limbo. I owe her everything. I would be with her right now if it weren’t for my “job.” The job, the job, the blankety-blank job. It brought me to her and keeps me away. My presence in her life has become a double-edged sword. If I wasn’t so completely and terrifyingly falling in love with her, I would have fallen on my sword and been done with this situation soon after I met her. God, if she isn’t the most intoxicating person I’ve ever met. Every moment with her is indescribable, and any price I have to pay to spend time with her is worth it.

  As I appear before another suicidal client, I have to think the almighty powers controlling my fate must be under the assumption that if I’m too busy with work I’ll no longer have any time to see Juliana. And if I’m keeping track of the days correctly — it’s difficult when you slip in and out of living time versus the afterlife, where time is more pliable — my first real date with Juliana is tonight.

  After the last two suicides, I materialize my body and show myself immediately, not
wasting the precious seconds my last two clients could have possibly used. “Please stop whatever you’re about to do,” I say, as I find myself standing behind her.

  The woman startles and turns, her shoulders hunched about her neck as if she were a turtle looking for the safety of its shell. Her unusual hair color, silver streaked with black, catches my eye before anything else. It’s shoulder length, straight and blows around her head with the light gusts of wind.

  “What do you want?” she snaps, her tone accusing me of an unforgivable interruption. Her voice is commanding, aged like a fine wine with a bite at the finish.

  I raise my hands in front of me and take a step back. “Nothing you don’t want,” I say.

  “What is that supposed to mean?” she says, sounding even more irritated.

  “It means if you’ll come away from the cliff, I’ll gladly answer any of your questions.”

  With this, she spins back around and takes a step closer to the rocky precipice. The ground in front of her disappears into a steep gorge. Below, a river winds between sheer rock faces and around enormous boulders where an eternity of weather and erosion has created the perfect mountain setting. Pale green, orange, and black lichens paint the granite with streaks of color. Random pine trees have managed to take root straight out of the stones. The trees are a true testament to the willpower of life in the harshest of conditions.

  “Go away, young man, before you see something that will change your life forever,” she says, her voice not quite as harsh as it had been a moment before.

  “There isn’t much I haven’t seen when it comes to dying. So if you want to do it, I’m here to take you to the next stage of life.”

  A long silence follows my words. With patience as my companion, I listen to the breeze rustle the grass atop the vista and brush across the leaves of the scrub oaks as it moves down the eastern slope. From this height, the sound of rushing water over the rocks below is a gurgling hum in the air.