Chapter One
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Jasmine
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What is that noise?
I sit up straight in my unfamiliar bed in my unfamiliar house, holding my breath and straining to catch the sound that woke me.
It's probably just the house.I swear it's haunted being out in the middle of nowhere, where my neighbors are a swamp on one side and another swamp on the other.Real estate dream it is not.
I'm also convinced the house is sinking; it's just a feeling I get since the floor, although solid wood, feels mushy under my feet.
I think the swamps on either side have a third, and the house has been built on it.I may also be losing my mind and have resorted to making up stories as I go along.Stress does that.
But I'm irrefutably sure there's a ghost stomping around in the attic—one that doesn't come out only at night.I heard the clomping all day.No way am I going up there unprepared, though.
Tomorrow, I'll arm myself with some sage, and then I won't need an exorcism—it's called being proactive.But really, my life is such a mess right now that even a ghost would rebuke me.
I turn around and face a brightly painted orange wall decked with daisies and cherubs whose smiles are rather sinister.My sigh ends up being a groan.
I need to paint the entire house white.None of these strange optical illusion psychedelic colors and weird designs.The living room is green with yellow stripes on the borders and brown mandalas scattered here and there.It hurts my brain.
There it is again, and it's not the ghost in the attic.The sounds are coming from downstairs—like ogres trudging around, causing earthquakes with each step.Or are the floors splitting, and the house sinking with me in it?
Ugh, I wish I knew whether I was facing a supernatural threat or just an architectural one.Although I would take a haunted house over a sunken swamp house any day.No house means I'm utterly homeless and so fantastically broke I would have to eat from the bins on the streets.
Grumbling and annoyed, I fling the blankets off my legs and climb out of bed, but the smell of mothballs hits me hard again and threatens to send me back down.
There's truly someone—no, oh no—it sounds like there are many people, things, and entities in the house with me.Oh god.
I grab a baseball bat leaning against a wall, ready to swing wildly at anything that comes my way and ask questions later.
I should have grabbed my robe, but my designer satin pajamas, consisting of a vest with lace trim and a pair of shorts, are decent enough for breaking kneecaps.
My brain immediately adds sound effects, and now I'm imagining the crunching sound of bone being broken, and I almost throw up in my mouth.I distract myself by slipping my feet into the pair of designer boots I wore that day.
I don't have the luxury of being a damsel in distress, so I plod along, holding the baseball bat out in front of me like a shield.I have the foresight to grab my phone and slip it into the pocket of my shorts.
The stairs creak loudly, and nothing I do masks the sound, but it doesn't even matter.Whoever or whatever has broken into my house is too busy stomping all over the place to hear my approach.
Great, I'll catch them unaware.But knowing my luck, I'll end up completely dead before I can defend myself.
I tiptoe into the kitchen, trembling so hard I'm going to drop the bat, and then my knees will lock in place, leaving me the proverbial stationary duck.
I flip the switch, and a light bulb above my head flickers awake.It's not very bright, but at least the kitchen is empty.
I drag my feet across the archway that leads into the living room from the kitchen.
They're in here.
I'm not thinking clearly, surely, since I square my shoulders, aggressively turn on the lights, and prepare to start screaming so loud that they'll get such a fright they'll run away.That's my game plan.
The lights in the living room are even dimmer than in the kitchen, barely illuminating anything.I see nothing—no one—except ghastly green walls and mismatched furniture.
A sigh of relief is about to fall from my lips when the walls start to move.
