Sensing Things

By Nancy Young

Mary Catherine has spent most of her life trying not to see ghosts, but now she can't stop. In desperation, she seeks relief by joining a paranormal support group. Then the real trouble starts.
Her past exposed, she's confronted with shunning and death threats. Add her looming Valentine's Day wedding, her unexpected pregnancy, and family pressures, and she's ready to bolt from the stress.
Her fiancé Tony, the sexy tech support for the Paranormal Posse reality show, wants to ride to the rescue. But even he can't protect her from the spirit they encounter at a haunted hotel room—a presence only she detects. The more he tries to keep her safe, the more she insists on proving herself. But does she really sense things in the dark? Or it all in her mind?
When the Posse investigates the reburial of a Revolutionary War hero, Mary Catherine's past returns to haunt her. Some things won't stay buried, and she has to face them to protect herself, her son, and her unborn baby.
Will the dark win this time?
Something in the Dark Series
Hearing Things
"...is a blast! It sucked me in and refused to let go...Nancy Young has a great voice, funny and heart-touching by turns."—New York Times Bestselling Author Angela Knight.
Seeing Things
"a smart, sexy, and frightening novel"—from Best Book I Read This Year, NCSU Libraries

• Language: English
• Publisher: World Castle Publishing, LLC
• Release date: Feb 20, 2017
• ISBN: 9781629896182

Nancy Young

Nancy Young strives to entertain, whether co-hosting poetry readings, supplying interesting aliases at restaurants, or storytelling at Renaissance fairs. Although she grew up on the Philadelphia Main Line, she now lives in North Carolina, where she never runs out of material to jump start her novels, short stories, plays, and poems.Her first publication was at age six, when her lion story was posted outside her first grade classroom. From then on, she was hooked, penning neighborhood dramas, improbable adventure tales, and Gothic romances through her youth. That love of the absurd and quirky never left her.It also served her well for most of her professional life. Nancy taught literature, film, and writing at various colleges, earning awards for her instruction. She also worked as a journalist, newspaper editor, choir director, and mother. She married her high school sweetheart, with whom she shares three sons, a daughter, and a daughter-in-law. She counts them as her most devoted fans.

Book preview

Sensing Things

Something in the Dark Series Book 3

By

Nancy Young

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

World Castle Publishing, LLC

Pensacola, Florida

Copyright © Nancy Young 2017

Smashwords Edition

Paperback ISBN: 9781629896175

eBook ISBN: 9781629896182

First Edition World Castle Publishing, LLC. February 6, 2017

http://www.worldcastlepublishing.com

Smashwords Licensing Notes

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews.

Cover: Karen Fuller

Editor: Maxine Bringenberg

Although the Internet passages found in this novel are original fiction, countless sites devoted to the paranormal and to Revolutionary War history are a mouse click away.

To Laura

Above our life, we love a steadfast friend.

—Christopher Marlowe

Chapter One

Mary Catherine

Wishing you could wipe the para from your normal? Wonder if others feel the same way? The Society for the Study of Paranormal, Occult, Out-of-body experiences, and teleKinesis (SPOOK) sponsors a monthly support group where members share their experiences in an open, welcoming, nonjudgmental environment. You are not alone.

On another day, I’d have smirked at the banner ad and scrolled past it. But nothing had been ordinary in my world for months, not since my sensitivity had become public knowledge. While I was waiting to cash in on double-coupon day at the Harris Teeter, the ad had popped up on my phone screen. Ironically, it happened as the cashier tried to convince me to talk to her husband, who had died of lung cancer fourteen years before without ever apologizing for all the women he’d had on the side.

I’d go and see him up at the hospital every day after work, she explained as she weighed my apples. Had to keep working, you know, ‘cause I was the one carried the insurance. But when I’d get there, he’d just say, ‘Go on home, Peg. I don’t want you here.’ I tell ya, Ms. Livingston, it like to broke my heart. And she looked broken, her eyes filling, the memory cutting as sharply on a sunny February morning in Raleigh as it had the moment he’d said it.

Even though my cookie dough and brownie ice cream (an irresistible buy two, get one free!) was growing soft, I couldn’t look away. Miss Peggy, I’m so sorry. That must have been an awful time for you. After glancing uneasily at the checkout line behind me, I lowered my voice. But once you open that door, it’s hard to close it. And there’s no guaranteeing what your husband has to say now is any different. Or that it’s something you want to hear.

I had no intention of telling sweet, scattered Miss Peggy that her asshole of a husband hadn’t improved any over the years. Why he chose to hang around a widow he’d scorned in life was a mystery, one I didn’t plan to probe. Some things should stay buried. He was one of them.

Hovering to her left and staring me down, he looked like the kind of guy who kicked puppies and chewed tar: emaciated, grizzled, and sour. At least the cold air swirling around him at the end of the counter might help keep my groceries from melting further. Did that sound callous? Really, I wasn’t heartless. I used to be a very nice person. But I’d had to toughen up, grow a protective shell to try to keep at least some of the constant whirl of grieving survivors in town from overwhelming me. Once upon a time, I could look away when the ghosts floated by, pretend I saw nothing, sensed no presence, felt no shadows closing in.

Not anymore. Now I couldn’t stop looking, even though looking meant trouble. Two checkout lanes over, another departed husband was trailing his spouse, smiling fondly, reaching up to pat her back as she struggled to make sense of the self-checkout line instructions. Unfortunately, he knew I’d seen him and waved me over. In such cases, it was best to simply give in.

Her name was Irene. And so my ice cream melted further as I helped Irene scan and bag her cat food, bananas, raisin bread, and tea, and load it all into an aging Lincoln. An angel must have sent you, she said while her hubby grinned.

You can see why I stalled when I read the ad. Since taking up my consulting position with the Paranormal Posse, I’d had to acknowledge and even enhance my peculiar sensitivity instead of hiding it, hoping to seem normal.

So I reread the ad, desperate to deal with the sensory overload issue, along with all the other issues in my life that kept me up late watching wildlife specials instead of sleeping. With Valentine’s Day fast approaching, I’d grown antsy, sensing things closing in tight around me like a Discovery Channel snake that coils around its prey and swallows it whole, head first.

My due date was in July—the month of Independence Day. And how ironic was that? Yes, I’d found plenty more than brotherly love in Philadelphia; I’d found a whole lot of complications. And Tony, bless his opportunistic heart, was the biggest one.

I hadn’t read his latest text. He wasn’t happy that I was here without him, gestating his offspring. But for at least a little while, my time was my own, with no restrictions. The banner ad for the paranormal support group flashed again. What would be the harm in dropping in for a meeting while I was in the area?

Yes, now I know better. But that was then.

***

Tony

Tony Proforta clicked on the video for the second time, watching the upper left corner of the computer screen in his studio office. At first glance, all he’d seen was a fuzzy shot of a hotel room ceiling. This time, he focused on the area in question. Yeah, there might be something moving, but the low resolution and shaky camera made the image so blurry he couldn’t make it out even when he froze the frame.

I think this one’s a bust, Peter. Tony didn’t bother to turn around to face the tall man hovering over his shoulder and breathing down his neck. Nothing that jumps out at me, anyway. Not enough to justify an investigation.

We got some eyewitness accounts. Peter Larsson leaned closer. And look—here, when the light flickers. He pointed to the right of the screen. Did you see that?

Tony nodded slowly. Let me play it back one more time. They watched the segment twice more. I don’t know, man. Tony shook his head. Could be dust. Doesn’t look like the video’s been tampered with, though. Shadows all line up. Blurs look natural. Haven’t checked for double MPEG compression yet. Tony swiveled his chair to look up at his partner. So what do you want to do?

Peter ran his long fingers through thick blond hair. "The hotel’s not too far from the old Parrish mansion, right? Mary Catherine’s old neighborhood?

Somewhere out there. All those Main Line suburbs run into each other. Ashley has the exact address.

He had mixed feelings about the area. Mary Catherine had been born and bred in that stuck-up stronghold of Philadelphia society. He’d first seen her, red hair wild, curvy body not quite hidden by a loose white tee shirt, at the mansion where she was compiling the Parrish family history, while the Posse investigated the Parrishes who still hung around after they’d died. He could have done without the supernatural pyrotechnics from that episode. But he couldn’t do without Mary Catherine.

Tony paused the video for a closer look at a faint shape near the bottom of the image. Was there something there? He took off his glasses and leaned into the screen.

Why don’t we send your woman in to check it out before we decide? Peter said. Be great to pick a local site. Save on the travel budget. That trip south took a big bite out of it.

Tony wasn’t surprised. The last episode of Paranormal Posse, filmed at an abandoned rest stop off I-95, had cost a bundle. It had cost him too. He’d never get over seeing Mary Catherine trying to comfort the invisible ghost of a dead toddler. And he’d definitely never get over watching the reality show’s official medium, Sylvie Blakely, in action. The risk to Mary Catherine once spirits got riled had him considering the unthinkable: cutting the filming short.

Mary Catherine’s out of town. Tony kept his eyes on the frozen screen.

What, she playing runaway bride on you? Peter’s laugh fell flat.

Tony’s eyes narrowed. No.

The single syllable had Peter fumbling. The wedding’s still on, right? Shit, Tony, I didn’t mean—

Tony wiped a hand over his face. Things are cool. She went back to Raleigh to pick up the kid for the ceremony. She’ll be back. He hoped that was true, anyway. He took a deep breath. I’ll let her know about the hotel gig.

He tried not to think of the unanswered texts he’d already sent.

Chapter Two

Mary Catherine

Another text? I didn’t have to check to know it was from Tony. Even though I sat four hundred miles away, I felt like he was right next to me. The vibration in my pocket grew more annoying by the minute, so I struggled to concentrate on the discussion around me.

I moved to a new place not too far from Duke’s campus, the twitchy hipster in the overcoat was saying. It’s close to stuff and has off-the-street parking and everything, but…well, there are these noises. I keep hearing these noises. Like, all the time. They—it makes me kinda nervous, you know? And I tried upping my meds, but they didn’t go away.

We’d left behind a spirited discussion of psi dreams, as well as a foray into the pitfalls of channeling and a brief detour into the difference between mental and physical mediums, but no one had yet uttered the g-word or even alluded to ghosts until now.

Around a dozen of us were gathered in a stuffy meeting room, a low-ceilinged, utilitarian space carpeted in industrial grey, spanning the lower level of a nondescript office building. Nothing about the place seemed unusual at first, until you saw the poster of the five Zener cards, the black and white photo of a séance, and the books lining the metal shelves along the sage green walls. A biography of Eusapia Palladino. Introduction to Parapsychology. Crawford’s The Reality of Psychic Phenomena: Raps, Levitations, Etc. Some of the texts looked like rare first editions, while others were standards I’d glanced through myself over the years.

I don’t know what I expected. Did I honestly think that I’d discover a community of people like me—people who were cursed with certain sensitivities and trying to cope? So far, all they seemed to suffer from were overactive imaginations. To the members of this group, every coincidence was a sign of other worlds attempting to communicate—chance encounters, flickering streetlights, repeated words, odd dreams. If they’d seen an actual manifestation, like the car crash victim that had stalked my son the month before, I wondered how many of them would still want to communicate.

Our true essence is spiritual, an earnest, tweedy professor type intoned, as if reciting an oft-read passage. The material is an illusion. The hum of assent from around the room reminded me of my refrigerator. And food. While the group meditated on that point, I thought about the tray of cookies I’d bypassed as I came down the hall.

Did you try making contact? A bald guy in a tee shirt printed with UNLEASH THE KRAKEN leaned forward. The light from the overhead fixture practically bounced off his gleaming pink forehead.

The hipster shook his head. "I wasn’t trying to hear more shit," he mumbled. Since I sat behind him, outside the inner circle of regular attendees seated around a table, I think I was the only one who heard him.

Across the circle, a grandmotherly woman leaned forward, practically clucking her disapproval. You have to open yourself to communicate. Fear drives them off.

The bald guy wasn’t about to let up. I had some great success with the Echo box last week. A couple of messages came through loud and clear. Check them out. I posted the session on YouTube.

Practically pulsating with excitement, the airy self-proclaimed dream expert gasped, Look! The mood lamp shifted to blue when you said that! We all looked. The globe that had last glowed warmly pink now did indeed radiate a soulful blue. I’d once had a lava lamp that pulled the same trick.

The color of communication in the chakra, the grandma nodded, smiling. I bet her chakra was the color of a fresh-baked biscuit. Or was I thinking of auras?

Is it an old building, Gary? The leader of the group, Trina, was an extraordinarily calm middle-aged woman who had introduced herself as a discernment intuitive. She reached her light brown hand across the table to get Gary’s attention. I’d been watching her off and on for the last ten minutes, and I still hadn’t seen her blink.

Yeah, Gary muttered, twitching.

We shouldn’t jump to conclusions. Sometimes old pipes make odd noises, she continued in a soporific tone that calmed Gary down. And foundations settle. It might be something as simple as that.

Could be rats, the bald guy added helpfully. Gary’s twitching resumed.

There were rats all over that place our Meetup group investigated Monday night, a wispy coed added. We didn’t have any luck with making spirit contact, though.

Does anyone else have something to share? Trina asked, casting a steady gaze around the motley circle of what I’d assessed as sensitives, spirit enthusiasts, star seed hopefuls yearning for their home planet, and at least one potential schizophrenic. Finally, the leader’s unblinking brown stare stalled on me. I squirmed as she waited, motionless. How about you, Mary Catherine?

The power of her look pinned me in my stiff plastic chair. Why had I filled out a name tag? I felt like I’d been outed.

But this was what I’d come for, wasn’t it―a chance to share in an open, welcoming, nonjudgmental environment? A couple of these people actively pursued the kinds of interactions I spent much of my life trying to avoid, at least outside of work hours. They’d understand. The Harris Teeter was pretty busy this week, I began. Heads tilted, and the coed stifled a laugh. Gary turned around in his chair to face me.

Busy how? The group leader quelled the girl with a frown.

It was double-coupon day, I added. The grandma nodded encouragingly. That tends to bring out more shoppers, especially, you know, senior citizens on a tight budget. So there were a lot of elderly ladies there. Widows. I paused for a few seconds and took a deep breath. With their husbands. Only Gary nodded at that.

The bald guy jumped in. Spirits? More than one? What did you use?

I’m sorry? I’d used my debit card and a coupon for Truvia, but I had a feeling that wasn’t what he was asking.

EVP? EMF? Did you record anything?

I don’t generally hear them. Thank God. My teenage son had that territory covered. For me, seeing was bad enough.

Spirit photography?

The Scole experiment used crystals, the grandma observed.

Since the support group members probably would have continued offering helpful suggestions for the rest of the evening, I decided to make my situation crystal clear. I…saw them. Ghosts. Two up close, anyway. In the checkout lines. Even Gary was staring now. Their collective silence weighed heavy, like lead sinkers suspended in the still air. I started to sweat. What the hell had I been thinking?

So, Trina coughed and started again. Mary Catherine, you’re saying that, without trying, you see these apparitions? At the Harris Teeter?

Well, not just there.

Food Lion? Gary’s voice was unnaturally high. I see things at Food Lion. In the produce, usually. He paused. Once in the meat section. That was bad. Looking embarrassed, he crossed his arms and sat back.

It’s not restricted to grocery stores. I squirmed in my seat. With twenty-two eyes still watching, my exposure level reached the critical point. In fact, there’s one waiting outside the door by the cookies.

***

Tony had texted twice more over the past hour. Without reading his messages, I answered, Heading back to meet Jodie and pick up D.J. That should buy me some extra time until I decided how much to tell him about the meeting. Why was I even debating that question? This was my future husband. The father of my baby. I should be able to tell him anything. But the habit of keeping my paranormal side hidden was so ingrained that there wasn’t a coarse enough sandpaper to rub it out. I was working on trusting Tony enough to marry him. Trusting him with all the details of my paranormal past and present would take more than a marriage certificate.

Trusting Tony was a work in progress. Trusting any man after my miscarried marriage to David was a challenge. But putting my trust in a guy who had posted videos of me at my most vulnerable (no, not that kind of vulnerable—the times when I connected with the sad spirits who formed the basis for the Paranormal Posse’s investigations) was more like a labor of Hercules.

It would take time. That’s what I needed. More time.

What was supposed to be a quick cup of coffee with Jodie turned into an hour-long discussion. We met at our usual spot, a pie place a few blocks from the house she shared with her mom—or had shared until recently when, in a declaration of independence, she quit her dull state job and moved into a studio apartment on Glenwood Avenue. I’d known Jodie for years, having literally run into her and her mother’s dog Otto while I pushed D.J.’s stroller down Elm Street. We had commiserated with each other over difficult mothers, faithless men, and miserable jobs. But while I was always the careful one, she tended to jump into every opportunity without looking to see what might be prowling at the bottom.

"Look, Jodie, I totally get that you need a new start. And now that your mom’s diabetes is under control and she’s feeling better, I think it’s