Whispers of the Dead: Love is Fantastic, #1

Whispers of the Dead

A Love is Fantastic Novella

By Lisa Williamson

Contents

Whispers of the Dead

A Love is Fantastic Novella

By Lisa Williamson

Prologue

Chapter one

Chapter two

Chapter three

Chapter four

Chapter five

Chapter six

Chapter seven

Chapter eight

Chapter nine

Chapter ten

Chapter eleven

Chapter twelve

Chapter thirteen

Chapter fourteen

Chapter fifteen

Chapter sixteen

Chapter seventeen

Chapter eighteen

Epilogue

Prologue

The voices of the Dead can fill the night if you are one who can hear them and Annabelle could. Every night some poor spirit would come to her, asking for help. She listened to their whispers and then showed them the way to whatever afterlife they believed in. There were some who believed there was only one afterlife, but she knew it was so much more. Each person had their own afterlife made up of their beliefs mixed with just how much baggage they had attached to their souls.

It was pretty simple, do good, kind things and the door to your afterlife would glow with a white light, hanging in the dark of the night till you stepped through it. Do evil, selfish things and well, that door was darker. Annabelle helped guide those who either got lost or were afraid through the doorway to the next part of their journey. She rarely had to deal with those who would be pulled through the darker doors.

As a white witch she did all she could to make the world a lighter, brighter place. Selling the herbs she grew at the farmer's market, and making simples and other odds and ends that she sold via the internet to those in the know. A simple life of service in a way that most people would never understand. She only had one need, one desire outside of the life she lived in her cottage in the woods. She just wanted to see him once more and ask him why he never returned to her side.

ACROSS THE COUNTRY Renshaw heard the barest brush of a foot outside the door of his motel room. He rolled off the side of the bed just as the door opened and a soft thud filled the room. He came up with a glow around one hand and a long knife in the other. Between one breath and the next he flung the knife which slid easily into the dark eye above a cloth mask. The body dropped soundlessly to the floor and he waited. After a few minutes passed he let out a breath and shook his head. That made twelve. Time to pack up and move again.

He dressed and quickly gathered the ward stones he had set around the room, stuffing them into the battered duffle bag before standing before the body on the floor. Damn it, he bent down and threw the body over his shoulder. The deposing of bodies was much easier when he still worked for the Company.

An hour later he was back on the road, the body put in a lonely grave in the night black hills. Whoever was sending the assassins after him were out yet another trained operative. This one couldn't have worked for them long; if he had he would not have tried to come in the front.

Chapter one

Annabelle sat, listening to the night's silence, waiting for something. There was a whisper on the night air; a new voice added to the chorus that she could hear. This one was demanding some kind of retribution and she sighed. She wasn't there to help vengeful ghosts get what they believed they were due. She pulsed out a go away and the voice went screaming off to wherever its body was. Someday it would find it’s after life and she was pretty sure it wouldn't be the one it had believed in when alive.

It was rare that she pushed a ghost away like that, but she was finding that being the door keeper was tiring. There were only so many nights she could do the work of a medium in a row. It was different before, when she had been wrapped in the arms of love. Being alone meant that her battery wasn't recharged by the living. Oh she could go into town, spend time reading to the children at the library or visiting the lonely at the elderly home, but it was becoming too much for her. He had left her too long ago and she didn't think he would be back this time.

No matter what she did, she knew that the chance that her heart's mate would return was vanishingly small. She had held onto hope for much longer than she should have. She prayed long and hard. Made offerings to every god she could remember and cast auguries that were all confused. She sat at the window, not looking out, her eyes closed.  It was a simple thing. Something every woman wanted and many found. All she wanted was love, so simple yet so hard for her to hold onto. There was only one man who she longed for, the one who left her with a weak excuse for the pain he gave her. An excuse that made sense to her as it tore her soul. That he was leaving to protect her. That he had no choice but leave her and not come back. Why then did he send the letters that hinted that he would? Renshaw with his grey eyes like storm clouds at night, yet those same eyes would glow with passion when he looked at her. He would hold her and tell her stories of the places far away that he had to travel and she would dream of those places.

Images played behind her fine skinned lids, of laughter and love, of sunlight and of shadows. Whispers played in her ears, words too soft to hear yet so well known to a heart. The letters she received held whispers behind the words. At first those whispers filled her with longing and happiness. She knew he was alive and safe enough to send her notes. At first they were filled with love and longing and sweetness, but slowly they grew darker, crueler, yet she read each and every one, holding them to her as the only link to the man she loved. When they grew dark she had sent that old ghost to watch over him and prayed that he would be safe.

Sighing, she opened her eyes and looked out, watching the clouds chase across the full belly of the moon. She should have known better, it was true. He was a butterfly. So beautiful and he flitted from flower to flower, but she had never expected him to leave entire. She had been patient, waiting her turn like no other before. After all the lovers on the road were a disguise, a cover and she let him have them. It wasn’t as if he loved them. She could tell by the way he spoke of them when he came begging her to forgive him.

She was patient, willing to wait until he gave it all up and came home to her. She believed now that it was that very patience that sent him fleeing. The gentle acceptance of things that must be what made him feel trapped. He wanted passion, rage at his tricks and lies, but it wasn't in her. She just hid the pain of his actions and held him when he needed it. His letters turned cruel, darker than she had expected. She kept them even though the words tore at her. It was something and when they stopped coming she felt lost and empty.

Getting up, she turned and walked out of the room. Wandering her shadow filled home, she ran soft fingers over the wood and cloth of her furnishings. Memories crowded her, but she paid them no heed. She would see them whenever she wished. There was something driving her, whispers distracting her. She had tried to sleep, tried to read and tried to sing. Nothing seemed to ease the distraction that filled her; the so soft voices that whispered in her mind would not let her rest. Even when she did her work, she could hear the whispers. She listened now and followed them outside. These whispers were not the whispers of the ghosts who would flutter about her. These were more like his soft voice telling her something she couldn't quite hear.

Stepping outside she closed the door and stood with her arms wrapped over her aching breasts, once more watching the moon. The full face of the mother sent its soft white light to her tired eyes. The light offered no comfort and she drifted across the leaf strewn yard. Autumn had gripped her home and a tiny partial smile lifted one side of her full lips as a squirrel chattered from the