Shadow Child Read online

  Shadow Child

  Wendy Farley

  Copyright © 2019 by Wendy Farley

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Acknowledgments

  People seem to think I write a book all alone, toiling away in a vacuum. But there are so many people who support me and I just wanted to take a moment and thank them for their help.

  First , my husband David, who helps me handle the business side of writing. He is a math whiz and I am so grateful that he loves tracking data, sales and ads for me. He also is a great sounding board when I’m stuck and my biggest cheerleader . I am so grateful for him and the way he loves me even when I haven’t left my writing cave in three days and need to be hosed down. (What? Ask any author how often they shower.

  Second, my crew. Vicki, Helen, Gwen, Paula, Sarah, MK and RA. This awesome group of women rallies around me and lifts me up. They do timed word sprints with me daily when I’m writing. Sometimes even late into the evening. They brainstorm with me and help me come up with the awesome rhyming spells in my book. They read for me and let me know the errors of my ways. I cannot do this job without them and I am forever grateful for them. I love you all!

  Third, I’m so grateful for my editor Helen Page for standing by me, even when I sometimes take it down to the wire. She puts a spit-shine on my prose and pulls me back from the edge so many days and I’m so glad I can call her my friend and my editor. I also want to mention my awesome cover designer Silviya Yordanova from Covers by Dark Imaginarium. Her covers inspire and inform my story in such a wonderful way. I’m so grateful that she’s willing to take my vision and make it real.

  Lastly, but certainly not least are the people I can go to with questions and get in-depth answers that help me do justice to my characters. I want to shout out a hearty thank you to Samantha Gardner for all her incredible Tarot knowledge and for reading those scenes to make sure I’m doing this ancient art as authentically as I can. I also want to recognize my sister-in-law Jennifer Farley, historian extraordinaire. She never fails to find answers I need about some of the tiniest details and to brainstorm ways for those details to not only fit my story but to do so with accuracy. Thank you Jen and I love you!

  Chapter 1

  Charlie Payne scanned the crowd for spirits while she waited for the auction to begin. Places like the Dalton Brothers Auction house always had an apparition or two attached to whatever worldly goods they sold at this place. Lingering spirits were part of the landscape when it came to getting rid of people's junk. Charlie spotted the ghost of the familiar old woman gliding among the attendees, unseen but not wholly unfelt. The spirit pushed past a group of pickers examining a collection of hurricane lamps. Two of the women shivered and hugged their arms close to their bodies. One glanced up and around as if to search for a vent that could have caused a cold blast of air. Charlie knew she wouldn't find one.

  Charlie recognized the ghost as Jemima Houston. She'd been hanging around this warehouse for as long as Charlie had been coming here, which was nearly fourteen years now.

  "So?" Jen Holloway asked as she stepped up next to Charlie.

  "Found Jemima Houston," Charlie said. The ghost stopped near a mirror at the front of the auction room next to the auctioneer's podium. Jemima gave the crowd a disdainful look and stepped through the shiny reflective glass and disappeared. Charlie shivered.

  "From the look on your face, I'd say you look like you'd seen a ghost," Jen Holloway joked.

  "You're hilarious." Charlie frowned at her cousin and scanned the warehouse, perusing the perimeter lined with furniture, rugs, chandeliers, books and the bric-a-brac that came from a lifetime of collecting.

  "Do you see Ms. Ruskin?" Jen asked with a little too much enthusiasm for Charlie's liking.

  "No. I've only seen one ghost." Charlie lowered her voice. "She may not be attached to any of her stuff. She may have just passed on." Jemima Houston climbed out of the mirror, and the hair on Charlie's arms and neck stood up. "Unlike some spirits."

  "Jemima?" Jen said.

  "Yep. I really should talk to Tom about helping her move on. She's harmless of course, but I think she likes being nosy with other people's stuff."

  "Bless her poor dead heart," Jen said.

  Charlie glanced around. "This is quite a crowd."

  "It is. I overheard a couple of the regulars talking with the lady at the registration booth. She said it's one of the largest estates she's ever seen. Every picker and antique dealer within 200 miles is here." Jen checked the watch on her wrist. "I wonder what's keeping Daddy?"

  "I'm sure he'll be here soon. He may not have been able to get a space in the parking lot," Charlie said. "So what kind of furniture are you looking for?"

  "Just a few things to make Ben's new apartment feel more like home and less like a hotel," Jen said. She handed Charlie one of the paddles used for bidding in the auction. Ben Sutton had made a bold move and rented a place in Palmetto Point. Charlie still wasn't sure how well he would settle down to the slower pace of life, but he genuinely seemed to care for Jen. As long as he made Jen happy, it made Charlie happy. "He has a sofa and two barstools we use to sit at the breakfast bar in his apartment. But there's no proper dining table and the bedroom is sparse. Just a mattress and box springs on the floor."

  Charlie couldn't stop the sly grin tugging at her lips. "Right, we can't have you sleeping on the floor, now, can we?"

  Jen's cheeks flamed. "Charlie Payne. I cannot believe you just said that."

  "You don't have to be embarrassed. You're a grown woman," Charlie said. "And you love him, right?"

  Jen's lips tightened as if she were fighting a smile. "I care very deeply for him."

  "You love him." Charlie chuckled. "I don't know why it’s so hard for you Holloway girls to say that."

  Jen dismissed the comment with a roll of her eyes. "Come on. Let's look through the furniture and see if there's anything interesting worth bidding on."

  "Okay, what am I looking for exactly?" Charlie asked.

  "A queen-size bed frame would be nice. A dresser. Maybe a nightstand," Jen said. "And a small dining set if I can find one."

  "I don't think any of the antique stuff is going to fit a queen-size mattress," Charlie said.

  "There's supposed to be some contemporary furniture here, too," Jen said. "I saw it in the estate listing online. The house the stuff came from was huge. Not every room was furnished in antiques."

  Charlie noticed a sofa slipcovered in a pretty chambray that could've come out of a home furnishings catalog near the back wall. "I can see that. Why don't I start searching over at the far end of the warehouse and you take the other end, and we'll meet in the middle?"

  "That sounds like a plan. The auction doesn't start for another hour." Jen dug into the large messenger bag she wore across her body and retrieved a small notepad and a pen. She pushed them toward Charlie. "You write down the lot number of anything you think is promising."

  Charlie took the pad and pen. "O
kay."

  "Oh, and one other thing." Jen closed the flap of her messenger bag.

  "What?" Charlie asked.

  "I don't want to take some piece of haunted furniture home," Jen said.

  "Can't you just cleanse it?" Charlie said.

  "I can, but it's not always foolproof. And I don't want to end up spending money on something that I'll have to chop up and burn because of some ghost that's attached to it," Jen said.

  "Don't worry. I'll try to make sure that nothing follows you home," Charlie said.

  "Thank you, I appreciate that. And I'm sure Ben will too."

  "Where is Ben?" Charlie asked. "Why isn't he picking out his own furniture for his apartment?"

  "He had to go to Charlotte on some DOL business. He'll be back tomorrow. In the meantime, I'm to check out what's available and not spend more than a thousand dollars."

  "It's a big step for him putting down roots," Charlie said.

  "It is." A smile stretched across Jen's face. "But I think he's ready. He says he is anyway. So please make sure there's not some spirit attached to it."

  "That's why I'm here, right?" Charlie said.

  "Right." Jen nodded then headed off through the maze of furniture for some bargains.

  Charlie dragged her hand across the back of a well-worn Chesterfield. The buttery leather reminded her of her ex-husband's den and called up an ambivalence that made her pull her hand away. It had been a while since they'd done more than exchange pleasantries when she picked up her son Evan every other Sunday for her week of custody. If she was honest with herself, she was glad of it. Scott's tone of voice could still make her feel like a naughty child.

  Charlie brushed away the thought and headed for the section where she spotted some contemporary bedroom furniture she thought Ben would like. She stopped in front of a spindle bed that seemed out of place among the more modern looking items. The bed's lines were far too feminine for Ben's taste, but it reminded Charlie of the bed she slept in when she first moved in with her grandmother after her parents died. Charlie wrapped her hand around the top rail of the footboard, letting her fingers dance over the curves of the carved wood.

  "You know my husband and I had a bed like this," a woman said. Charlie turned to her right and found a tall, regal woman with silver hair that looked freshly clipped and curled.

  "That's funny," Charlie said. "I was just thinking this is a lot like a bed that I had when I was growing up."

  "Hmmm," the woman said, her face lighting up as she spoke. "It was our first bed together. It had been at my grandmother's house, and when I married Henry, she gave it to us. Along with this horrible old mattress that squeaked and jabbed you in your back." She chuckled and the sound danced through Charlie's senses like music. "We had some very good times in that bed. And some not so good times too."

  She let out a shuddery sigh and Charlie could feel the sorrow pouring from the old woman, filling the space around her. It washed over and through Charlie, making her skin tingle with cold.

  "I guess that's the way of it."

  A familiar pang filled Charlie's chest. The woman's husband was dead. She knew it the way she always knew these sorts of things.

  "I'm so sorry," Charlie said. "When did he pass?"

  "December," she said. Her wrinkled face deflated in anguish. "Some days it feels like longer. And some days it feels like it was yesterday."

  "I'm sorry," Charlie said.

  "I am too. We were married nearly 65 years. He breathed out, and I breathed in, almost like we were one person." Her eyes glistened with tears.

  "That's very impressive. I was married for ten years and . . ." Charlie shook her head. "I do not think I could have lasted more than that with one man."

  "Then he wasn't the right man," she said. She looked at Charlie, through Charlie. And the hair on Charlie's arms stood up.

  "I see my daughter over there," the woman said. "I should probably go catch up with her."

  "Of course," Charlie said.

  The old woman patted the carved acorn finial on the bedpost and smiled. "It's a good bed. A solid bed. You couldn't go wrong with it."

  "Yes ma'am," Charlie said.

  "Charlie!" Jen called and waved.

  "I'm sorry." Charlie glanced toward her cousin's voice and returned a wave. "If you'll excuse me, that's my cous--" The words died in her throat when she turned back to make her excuses. The old woman had vanished. Charlie turned in a circle, scanning the crowd for the distinctive-looking woman, but she was nowhere to be seen. Charlie took a step into the space the woman had occupied. Her breath puffed out in a cloud, and the skin on her hands and arms stung with a chill. It may have been a rainy Friday morning, but there was no way she should've seen her breath in the 70-degree temperature. Why couldn't the dead just wear a sign? She shook off the shudder threatening to course through her and stalked away in frustration.

  "What's wrong?" Jen asked when Charlie drew close.

  "Nothing," Charlie lied. "Did you find anything?"

  "There's a table and chairs behind that playhouse that I think might do. They're not too big and would fit in Ben's apartment." Jen gestured past the ornate child's playhouse. It looked like a storage shed that had been made into a little girl's idea of heaven. An artist's hand had made it lifelike, painting it white with pink trim and adding small gingerbread accents. Tulips in various shades of yellow and pink appeared to bloom near the bottom of each outer wall. The designer had installed real windows on either side of the Dutch front door, left wide open so buyers could look inside. Charlie stepped up and took a peek. A child's table with two chairs flanked one side, and a child's rocking chair sat in the opposite corner.

  "Wow," Charlie said. "Wouldn't that have been fun to have when we were kids?"

  "I know," Jen said. "I hope Ruby doesn't fall in love with it."

  "Ruby's coming?" Charlie asked.

  "Yep, teacher workday. She's coming with Daddy. Let's go look at the table really quick," Jen said. Charlie followed her around to the other side of the playhouse where several dining tables were set up.

  "Did all this come from one house?" Charlie marveled.

  "That's my understanding," Jen said. She found the table she was looking for and rubbed her hand over the wood, examining it up close. "I like the oval pedestal table even though it's a little worn around the edges. But I think with the leaf it'll be large enough to seat six." Four pine ladder back chairs were pushed up to the table to make a set. "What do you think?"

  "The chairs don't match," Charlie said.

  "I know, but I was thinking I could paint them different colors, so it wouldn't really matter," Jen said.

  "Well, you're the crafty one," Charlie said. "I wouldn't have the patience for that."

  "I guess it's a good thing you're not buying them then," Jen said. "Can you please check the table?"

  Charlie nodded and put her hand on top of the table and closed her eyes. The image of a family flashed through her mind. Three of them sat around the table, a woman, a man, and a small boy. They appeared in clothing from an earlier time, maybe the late fifties early sixties? Charlie wasn't sure. They ate and laughed and jabbered on about their day. Charlie opened her eyes. "I don't sense a spirit exactly. More like an imprint. Nothing with any sort of intent anyway. A good cleansing should get rid of it."

  "Alrighty." Jen grinned and wrote down the lot number on the pad she held in her hand. "Did you have any luck?"

  "Not really," Charlie said. "I had an encounter with a spirit."

  "Great," Jen said, but she didn't sound thrilled about the prospect.

  "There are some nice bedroom sets over that way, though. Just not the spindle bed. I think the spirit was attached to it," Charlie said.

  "Noted," Jen said.

  "Mama!"

  Charlie and Jen looked to find the child's voice. Ruby Holloway waved madly with one hand, dragging her grandfather behind her with the other.

  "Hey, baby girl," Jen said. Ruby let go of her gran
dfather's hand and threw herself against her mother's petite body, wrapping her arms tight around Jen's waist. Jen let out an oofing sound. She stroked her daughter's long, dark hair.

  "Hey Uncle Jack," Charlie said.

  "Charlie, it's good to see you," Jack said. "I didn't know you were in the market for furniture."

  "I'm not," Charlie eyed her uncle with care. "I'm just here to help Jen."

  "Many hands make light work," Jen said.

  "Uh huh," Jack narrowed his eyes. "That works I guess."

  "Mama." Ruby pulled away from her mother. She stared in the direction of the playhouse. Her large blue eyes widened. "That's a kid's house."

  Jen winced and forced a smile. "I suppose it is, sweetie."

  Ruby approached the playhouse with slow reverence. Jen folded her arms across her chest and sighed. Her gaze followed her daughter. Ruby peeked through the door then disappeared in a rush. Jen chuckled.

  "You don't have to be psychic to know that was going to happen," Charlie said, wearing a wry grin.

  "I know," Jen said. "I just hate to disappoint her."

  "Maybe you don't have to," Jack said stroking his bearded chin.

  "You're gonna buy it for her?" Jen asked. "Because I don't have the money for it right now."

  Jack shrugged. "I can bid on it. If I win, great, and if I don't then it will be a lesson about how auctions work."

  "Well, don't go crazy," Jen said. She moved into the playhouse door. "Come on sweetie, we need to finish looking for furniture for Ben."

  Charlie moved next to Jen. Ruby sat at the child-sized table pretending to drink tea from an invisible teacup and chatting away.

  "Who are you talking to sweetie?" Jen asked.

  "My new friend, Barbara Jean," Ruby said. "Would you like some more tea, Barbara Jean?"