Gypsy Magic - J.R. Rain Page 0,8

lay back down, taking a deep breath and trying to calm myself.

Chapter Three

Today was move-in day!

I woke Finn up and even though he grumbled and groaned and pulled the covers back up to his chin; he was up and brushing his teeth in another few minutes. We packed our things and then started for the lobby, where I grabbed a cup of coffee to go and we piled into the Jeep, eager to meet the moving trucks.

Yes, tonight would mark our first night in our new house, which hopefully wasn’t haunted. I even crossed my fingers as the thought raced through my head. And of course that weird dream was still lingering, even though I did my best to push it to the dark recesses of my mind.

It was just a dream, nothing more, I told myself. And, besides, nothing is going to ruin this fantastic day! This is the first day of the rest of our lives!

“Are you excited?” I asked Finn as I reached over and squeezed his knee.

“I guess,” he answered.

“This is going to be great,” I said with another nod. “We’re going to have a new start and life is going to be one big adventure from here on out.”

He looked at me and smiled, his braces glittering in the early morning light. “Okay, Mom.”

***

Seven hours later, Finn and I were exhausted. The moving trucks were gone and all of our furniture was unloaded and I was sorting through the myriad boxes that covered the floors. I’d decided to start the remodel in the kitchen area, so I was trying to clear all the kitchen boxes away, storing them in the dining room. Tomorrow I’d start looking for general contractors.

“It looks good in here,” I said as I looked around Finn’s room, which was adjacent to mine. His bunk bed was set up in the corner and his steamboat trunk was in the other corner, overfilled with Nerf guns. His bookshelves lined the opposite wall, housing Legos in half-built condition, board games, books and other toys that hadn’t found a permanent home yet.

“Yeah, I like my room,” Finn said as he glanced around himself, pausing in his unpacking.

“Well, think about what color you want to paint it,” I started as the sounds of yelling erupted from downstairs.

“What was that?” Finn asked, eyes going wide.

I took a deep breath. “You stay right here and I’ll go find out.”

“Mom, what if it’s ghosts?”

“It’s not ghosts,” I said, hoping I was telling the truth. The last thing we needed was another ghost. “I’ll be right back,” I said as I gave him a smile and started for the stairs, taking them two at a time.

A chorus of ghoulish voices drifted through the half-opened door. A pair of them, raised and angry, but definitely human.

Poltergeists weren’t big on witty repartee. It was usually ‘grab, smash, scream’ and not always in that order. The poltergeist that targeted Finn at our last house had been a big fan of the ‘grab and scream’ combo, waking him almost every night. That is, until I banished the SOB. But, by then, the damage was already done and Finn wanted no part of the house any longer. So we moved… to Haven Hollow.

I didn’t remember leaving the front door open and was tempted to slam the heavy oak into the faces of my evening visitors for scaring the life out of my son. But, on closer inspection, one of the people standing on the porch was holding a keychain with the Hallowed Realty logo on it.

So this person must have been Ophelia Ponsobby, my realtor. We’d talked briefly on the phone about the selling points of the house: that it was four thousand square feet and had once been a general store, and before that, a post office. Built in 1854, the house was the longest surviving on Orchard Street.

If the fashion police could have put Ophelia on trial, she’d be in for life, without the possibility of parole. Her checkered pantsuit had to have been pulled straight from a 70s catalog. And the boxy shoulder pads made her look like she was ready to fill in for the linebacker at the local college football team. The string of pearls around her neck looped down to her slightly protruding navel and looked well-suited for strangling someone. Her boots were heeled and witchy looking with long and narrow points.

Rose-colored glasses perched on her hawkish nose, not completely concealing the pair of beady black eyes that stared