Page 62 of Somebody's Watching Me
“Yes, that’s exactly it.” Laura Jean’s head tilted to the side. “Is that how you feel about your man?”
“It is,” she confessed. “I swear I haven’t been able to breathe since he left.”
“Youprobably haven’t.”
The distortion around Laura Jean grew, and reaching out, she rubbed her knuckles along Jamison’s cheek. A motherly move she would never experience in real life.
“It might be time to compromise, Jamison with an i. You don’t want to spend your life missing pieces of yourself.”
“So, you think I should just give up my dream of having a family?”
“Compromise isn’t giving up.” The buzzing chainsaws in the distance ceased, the shouts of the children faded, and Laura Jean smiled one last time. “It’s showing the person you love that they’re worth the effort.”
A swirl of wind twisted through the porch, jingling the wind chimes and sweeping away her mother. Jamison continued to rock, enjoying the rare silence not often found at Haven House.
But the peace was short-lived. All at once, a batch of cicadas cried out. An odd thing to hear in the middle of the day.
Behind the bushes lining the porch, a lone woman walked along the path, her face obscured by the blooms. Jamison stood as she neared, the cicadas’ shouts reaching a deafening level.
“Hello?”
The new arrival stuck a hand in the air, waving with a wiggle of fingers over the bushes as she came closer. “Hello, Jamison.”
The stranger rounded the corner. A young woman dressed in a long white nightgown. She was lovely, with a sweet face and large brown eyes that reminded Jamison of a doll.
“Have we met?”
The cicadas quieted as the woman reached the bottom porch step. “In the forest.”
“I see.”
“Do you?”
Jamison’s gaze dropped to the woman’s bare feet. “I thought I was hallucinating.”
“Who’s to say you weren’t.”
“Are yougood?” Jamison’s gaze rolled up to the haint blue ceilings when the woman climbed the stairs. “Or bad?”
Afternoon shadows played peekaboo across the porch, dancing over the woman’s features as she snorted out a laugh. “Are you a good witch or a bad witch?”
The hairs on the back of her neck tingled, and Jamison retreated slightly. “You’re a witch?”
The woman huffed, pausing on the final step to stand between the two entrance columns. “That’s just what Glinda asks Dorothy when she lands in Oz.”
“Are you telling me I’m in Oz?”
“No, you’re at Haven House,” the woman replied. “A home some of us killed to protect.”
Icey dread crystallized in Jamison’s chest. It was time to wake up. “Hello, Cecilia.”
“Please call me CeCe.”
“Are you a ghost?”
“What do you think?”
Jamison backed up a few more steps, and CeCe rolled her eyes. “Don’t be such a scaredy cat. Your sister is afraid of her own shadow but even she doesn’t run from me.”
