“Iris, I need to apologize to you.” That was a first from Vivien. Iris stopped as she was about to take off her coat at the front door of The Countess. What was she apologizing for? The army of ghosts Iris had had to cleanse? Her ridiculous plan to scrub the curse out of existence? […]

The boy was older now. But Iris could tell it was still him. The little boy she’d seen dreaming beside a toy train had to be twenty-two, twenty-three here. She knew she was invisible in this dream, but that didn’t stop her from ducking away from his wrath. Iris couldn’t understand anything he said, but […]

The phone was ringing, pulling Olivia out of vague, unsettling thoughts as she washed the dishes. She set down the plate in her hand, dried her hands on a towel, and picked up. “Hello?” “Hi, Olivia.” It was Iris. As Olivia placed her voice, a surge of anger went through her, stronger than anything she’d […]

“Hey, is everything okay?” Olivia thought she’d be able to look normal at work, but apparently it had taken Hugh all of ten minutes to parse out that something was wrong. So now he was standing in the back, waiting for an answer as she plated a burger. “Yeah, it’s fine,” Olivia lied, neatening the […]

When Andrew got home from Iris’s shop, Olivia was sitting on the stone wall in the backyard, watching Mia as she played with a ball on the half frozen grass. She wore a heavy sweatshirt and her normally neat hair was tangled in the wind as it hung over her face. “Hey, Liv,” he said […]

The next morning, Olivia was feeling a little better. The nightmares had been filmy and inconsistent, not lingering when she opened her eyes. And she’d been further touched to wake up and see her daughter and all of her friends still asleep in the room with her. Noah woke up as soon as she moved […]

Liv was trembling as Noah helped her into her bed a little while later. He didn’t know what they’d done with her over at Roman’s, but her hair was still wet and she smelled herbally and fresh. He went to stand up as she laid down, but her hands slid down his arms and gripped […]

Bzzzzt….Bzzzzt… Cleo had fallen into bed the minute they’d gotten home from The Blossom Step’s show in New Hampshire. It wasn’t even that late and she’d been almost embarrassed to admit that she wasn’t up for going out partying in Manchester afterward with Tyler and Ryan. Sometimes it sucked being the older one in the […]

Roman and Celine were at the edge of their property when Andrew pulled up. By this point, the spirit possessing Olivia had told him all the details of his bank accounts, how flush they were and how he needed to get them. It was important, more important than anything else. Liv’s voice was ragged by […]

“Help me.” The voice whispered to Olivia from the shadows outside of the house. It was ten at night and she was getting home from yet another terrible shift. Her head pounded, and all she wanted was to go to bed and ignore it. She had the onyx in her pocket, so nothing should be […]