From the Wisp ...

A breeze rattled the leaves above. Several shook free and landed on the stone bench Amy and Bara sat upon. The maple held onto its fall color, but the underside of dark limbs stood bare thanks to the strong winds from the night before. Colin stood a few feet away, drinking from a stainless steel cup. Bara was retelling her dream. She finished and waited. A moment passed. He remained silent. A red leaf drifted down and landed on his green scarf. He didn’t bother to brush it away. As though she hadn’t said anything out of the ordinary, he took another sip of his Earl Grey.

“Well?” Bara prodded.
He raised an eyebrow but still said nothing. Another leaf fell, this time landing in his auburn hair lit ginger by the bright fall sunlight. He remained mute.
“Say something!” she demanded.

He blew on his tea.
“It’s weak. I know all you St. Cat girls think the new coffee guy is just so hot, but he can’t make tea to save his life.”
Bara had yet to see the new barista at the Tragic Sip. At that moment, she didn’t care. Colin’s response was too much, or rather too little. She’d had enough. She jumped up from the bench and grabbed the cup from his hand.
“About the dream!”
“It seems pretty obvious to me, Barbie,” he replied without changing his easy tone.
“Yeah? Obvious how?”
He looked at her solemnly.
“You’re haunted.”
He continued to look at her gravely but then broke into a gigantic toothy grin. Bara was fast. The poor boy didn’t see it coming. With a fluid movement of her arm, she hit him upside the head and removed the leaf that had taken up residence.
“Thanks for nothing,” she said sarcastically.
“Hey, that hurt!”
“It was supposed to.” She removed the lid from his cup, took a sip, and winced. It was indeed weak and in need of lemon. Betty, her mother’s maid, had trained her well. Earl Grey, unlike orange pekoe, took lemon and not milk.

Colin rubbed his head.
“The question is what to do about it?”
Amy broke in.
“It’s the Diary. We put it back and all of this will stop.”
Bara gave Colin back his tea and Amy a look of warning.
“My thoughts exactly,” agreed Colin. “We put it back and maybe some other sucker will find it. All this will stop being our problem. He’ll become the chosen one, Obi Wan Kenobi and all that, but there is …”
Bara interrupted him.
“We can’t do that.”

“It all started with that stupid diary,” Amy insisted. “This is getting really weird and not to mention dangerous. You could have been hurt or worse out there in the woods ... or wherever you were. I mean, look at your feet.”
Her feet were in pretty bad shape. They were covered in gauze and antiseptic. It had hurt to walk in her saddle shoes. She wore a pair of red rubber boots which were larger and slightly more comfortable. They clashed with the burgundy tartan of her St. Cat kilt but she didn’t care.
“The thing is … did it really start with the diary?” Colin asked.

---

Some gothic, fantasy and Halloween horror with Bara and the Wisp. Full novel is available through the link below.

***