Who
doesn’t love a good story about a haunting? Probably my favorite book about
ghosts and hauntings is The Shining by Stephen King.
I’m
writing my own ghostly tale, called Free Spirit. Here’s an excerpt when Rachel
goes to talk to voodoo priestess Viola for help:
If
anyone would understand what was happening and would be able to help me, it
would be Viola.
“I,
uh, have some weird stuff happening,” I said. “I think I’m haunted.”
Yeah,
that sounded as ridiculous as I’d feared it would. At least nobody here was
laughing.
Viola
nodded sagely but said nothing. She looked at me for a long time.
“You
are out of balance,” Viola declared. “Your throat chakra, it is far too open,
as usual.” She seemed to wave away the cause of my occasional foot-in-mouth
disease. Obviously that wasn’t important right now. “Your heart chakra is the
problem. There is a darkness there. Something follows you.”
Well,
great. This visit had been ever so comforting thus far. I thought that leaving
my house would be enough to keep me entity-free. Apparently, my ghost was of
the take-out variety.
“What
does a ghost have to do with the energy centers in my body?”
“The
ghost has little energy of its own,” Viola explained. “It draws energy from
around it to manifest, take action. Become.”
The
ghost was drawing energy from my heart? Ew! “What the hell is the ghost trying
to become? She’s already dead,” I said.
“You
know the spirit?” Viola asked. “That is good. It will make things a bit
easier.” It was the first
comforting thing Viola had said.
“I
think she’s the spirit I saw in the cemetery last night,” I said. “But I don’t
know how. She was trapped there in her plot. She couldn’t move away from her
crypt.”
“Your
spirit,” Viola told me, “she is free now.”
It
was such a simple statement, and yet it chilled me to the core. Another
miracle, given the temperature outside was nearing ninety.
“How
do you know?” I challenged Viola. I’d come to her for her expertise, but at the
moment, I wished with all my heart she was a raving loon because I didn’t like
her answer.
Viola
gave me a look like I was a particularly slow child. “Because she is there.”
Viola pointed at the place my heart chakra would be. “She cannot be
trapped in her grave. I know because I see her there.”
What
are your favorite books about ghosts and hauntings? And do you believe in
ghosts?
