When Dawn Approaches

By K.D. Davis

Tessa Abrams is a long way from home. Her parents move her from California to South Carolina for her senior year of high school. Feeling out of place and seeking acceptance, she joins the dance team hoping to make friends. The girls on the team dare her to go into the old Bennett house - abandoned, dilapidated, and rumored to be haunted. There, she meets the ghost of Eli Bennett, who has been cursed to remain in the house since the Civil War.

Eli is different from the other boys she's met. He's kind, brave, and smart. While Tessa's attraction to him grows, so do the dangers all around them. As they fight to stay together, forces in the town and in the afterlife pull them apart, threatening not only their relationship but Tessa's life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: K.D. Davis
• Release date: Aug 11, 2011
• ISBN: 9781466139824

K.D. Davis

I'm a Los Angeles based author who loves to write young adult paranormal romantic fiction.My perfect day would be spent lost in a good book, with a big cup of coffee and a blueberry muffin.

Book preview

When Dawn Approaches

By K.D. Davis

Copyright 2011 K.D. Davis

Smashwords Edition

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All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

I have heard, but not believed, the spirits o’the dead

May walk again.

- William Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale

Chapter 1

What are you waiting for, Tessa? Get a move on, Ashley said.

Yeah, you say you want to be a Pageant Girl so bad, this is what you’ve gotta do. We all did it, Addie Rose said.

The girls were lying. None of them had set foot into the old, deserted, rundown mansion on the edge of town. They sneaked knowing glances at each other and suppressed snickering giggles. Tessa didn’t notice. They knelt behind some overgrown shrubs and she was too busy staring up at the mansion’s crumbling edifice, trying to drudge up the courage to make her feet move. Paint was peeling in long curlicues on the siding; dilapidated shutters hung precariously on the windows, looking as if one strong gust of wind would blow them off their hinges. The bottom windows were boarded and pranksters had smashed most of the windows in.

Tessa took a deep breath. Ok, I’m ready. I’m going in.

The night air was muggy and hung heavy like a thick veil over the town, even though it was eleven o’clock. In the summer, it never seemed to cool down. The cicadas and crickets seemed to grow louder, as if warning her to stay away from the house.

Well if you’re going, I don’t see you moving, Ivory said and gave her a little push.

Tessa stood, feeling like every bone in her body was quivering. She was afraid and the last thing she wanted to do was go in there alone, but she didn’t want to let the Pageant Girls know.

The Pageant Girls was her new school’s dance team. It was comprised of all the popular girls in school and was well known in the state of South Carolina as being the best dance team around. They had an entire hallway of glass cases at the school devoted to their trophies. Tessa had been a dancer for most of her life and was on the dance team at her old high school in Los Angeles. At the end of her junior year, her parents uprooted her from the life she knew and dragged her unwillingly to Groversville, where she was faced with spending her last year of high school in a town that was hard to locate on a map.

At first, she auditioned for the Pageant Girls so that she could keep dancing, the thing she loved most in the world, but it had become more than that. Being the new girl in school, she thought joining the dance team would be a good way to make friends and that she would feel less homesick, but she quickly realized that fitting in with these girls was going to be tougher than she imagined.

The Pageant Girls were pretty much clones of each other, with long flowing blonde hair, the only difference being the slightly varying shades of blonde, from ash blonde to honey to sun kissed. They all wore heavy makeup and were never seen without lip-gloss and eye shadow. Tessa was different. She had naturally wavy red hair and hardly wore any makeup at all. She knew she would stand out amongst the group and relied on her dancing abilities to get her onto the team, and she had made it except for this final initiation.

The girls were jealous of her. She had a pretty smile that was contagious and when unleashed on the boys in town at the start of the school year would threaten to dethrone even the most popular girl and dance captain, Ashley.

The girls latched onto the only flaw that they could find, Tessa’s two different colored eyes. One was brown and one was green. The colors weren’t even that noticeable, but once the girls realized it, they teased her and told her that she was meant to be two different people before she was born. Because she was from out of town and they wanted to give her an extra hard time, they had cooked up this scheme for her in particular even though the team had never required an initiation before.

Tessa built up the courage to put one foot in front of the other and made her way down the cracked walkway. Tall weeds pushed their way up from the cracks and she had to be careful not to trip on them. When she reached the base of the steps, she looked over her shoulder to where the girls were crouching behind the shrubs. She could hear them encouraging her to go in. They were all giggling.

The stairs creaked under her feet as she tiptoed up. There were a few missing boards on the porch that had dry rotted and hadn’t been replaced. One shutter near the front door swayed in a light breeze that Tessa had not felt earlier. She paused at the door and reached out with a shaky hand for the doorknob.

She reflected on the events that had occurred earlier that day that had led her to this moment.

Now for the final step of your initiation, Ashley had said that afternoon. The old Bennett house.

The old Bennett house has been around since Civil War times. Some folks say it’s haunted, Lindsay said almost in a whisper.

Haunted? Like ghosts walking around? Tessa asked.

Just one ghost, Ivory said. The ghost of Eli Bennett.

I want to tell the story, Ashley said. It’s been said that Eli Bennett was a traitor. During the Civil War, Eli Bennett turned spy. One of his brothers, who was a Confederate infantryman, shot him dead on the spot. It’s said not even his parents came to his funeral and they cursed the day he was born. And now, his ghosts remains in this very mansion for eternity.

The Pageant Girls paused, allowing the story to sink into Tessa’s mind. They wanted her to be afraid.

How do you know his ghost is still here? Has anyone seen it? asked Tessa.

The old groundskeeper did, but he died of fright and then no one’s wanted to go in there since, Ashley said.

No one wanted to come near the place after that and it just fell into shambles, Addie Rose said, stifling a chuckle.

Why didn’t they tear it down? Tessa asked.

Because it’s a historical spot. Can’t tear it down. Something about soldiers being buried out behind the house, Ivory said.

Tessa gulped. And you want me to go in there?

Not just go in. You have to go up to the attic and shine this flashlight out the window at us so we know you’ve done it, Ashley said, handing her a cheap plastic flashlight.

Tessa looked at them skeptically. You’ve all gone in there then?

We all did, they said in unison.

Swear to God, said Addie Rose.

And now it’s your turn if you want to be one of us, Ashley said.

Now, at the initiation, Tessa’s shaky hand pushed open the front door. She had to lean on it to push it open because the door hadn’t been touched for some time and the wood was warped. She decided to leave the door open in case she needed to make a quick getaway. From the front door, she entered into a foyer that was hopelessly caked in dust and cobwebs. The moonlight seeped in through the windows, but because they were so dirty and half-boarded up, the room was dark and her eyes had