Do You Believe in Ghosts?

Do You Believe in Ghosts?

By Toni Noel

I do. I always have, not because I've had any close encounters with ghosts, but because I'm more gullible than the average reader. This may be the reason ghosts keep showing up in my novels. My September 1 eBook released by Desert Breeze Publishing,  Fairy Dusted, has the latest ghost.

In it, Drew O'Malley takes his wife Jill to visit relatives in Ireland, a trip he hopes will save his troubled marriage, and finds the two of them sharing their Treehouse Inn accommodations with a ghost.

At first Drew doesn't believe it possible, since only Jill's personal items are being moved around their room, or disappearing. Then his favorite San Francisco Giants baseball cap disappears and Jill's spots her ghost wearing it. The ghost looks so much like Drew's niece Megan, when they checkout of the room, Jill leaves the troubled ghost a note.

Wikipedia explains ghosts this way:

"A ghost is the soul or spirit of a deceased person or animal that can appear in visible form or other manifestation, to the living. Descriptions of the apparition of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible shapes, to realistic, life-like visions."

Jill clearly sees the translucent red-headed being who seldom appears to men, and believes she is the ghost of Drew's ancestor who died in childbirth. Jill may be right. The Treehouse Inn was built on property the ghost's large family once occupied.

She believes the ghost is searching for the baby daughter taken from her at birth, and tries to put the ghost's mind to rest by leaving her a note.

Many photographs exist of supposed ghosts. The most well known is a  published photo many believe a fake called the Brown Lady of Raynham Hall taken by Captain Hubert C Provand. Ghost sightings have been reported on trains, ship, and of course in haunted houses and cemeteries. The notorious ghost of Whaley House in San Diego's Old Town draws tourists to the clapboard structure where narrow stairs preclude rapid escape, should the ghost decide to put in an appearance.

Sometimes ghosts appear on film, many of those are fakes, but enough repeat sightings exist to make even a non-believe wonder.

I grew up among kids afraid to pass a cemetery at night. Perhaps that's why I included the hint of a ghost in Decisive Moments, my novel about a gutsy photographer and a reclusive architect, but the ghost in that book is not the kind of ghost to be feared. She only wants her traumatized son to find happiness.

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To read more about Jill O'Malley's ghost, download Fairy Dusted from one of these sites:

http://stores.desertbreezepublishing.com/-strse-template/Toni%20Noel/Page.bok

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Toni+Noel&x=13&y=20

Or from your favorite eBook store.

Excerpt from Fairy Dusted

If only Jill didn't want a baby so badly.

Better still, if only he wanted a child. Things might work out for them if he did, but he wouldn't change his mind about this. Not when another young life would hang in the balance.

Drew's gut clenched. Sure as day followed night Jill would never forgive him for not coming clean with her on this.

The sudden clang of a pot lid and footsteps moving about in the kitchen ended Drew's reverie.

Exhausted from trying to solve his clients' marital problems, he was more than ready to seek refuge inside. Enjoy a tasty meal seated across from his beautiful wife in their well-appointed dining room.

As if he would.

Dread kept Drew glued to the spot, afraid to open the back door, hesitant to face his one-hundred-ten-pound wife.

The pot lid clanged again. Drew yanked open the door and strode in.

Jill stood at the stove, stirring something in an iron pot, her dark auburn hair pulled back from her face with a silver clamp.

"Gosh that smells good." He grabbed a long-handled spoon and sampled the bubbling stew. "How soon do we eat?"

She glanced at him and smiled, a good sign. Lately, he never knew what to expect when he came home. Fertility drugs played havoc with Jill's hormones. With their relationship, too.

He constantly worried about their marriage. He'd be satisfied if they never had a child, overjoyed, actually. He and Jill growing old together, walking through life hand in hand.

Just because we're married doesn't mean we have to have a child.

To Jill, it does.

She'd make too much of his action if he patted her softly yielding butt. Before his next breath she'd have him stripped and stretched out on the bed.

Fertility drugs changed Jill. Gave her the upper hand in their sex life. Made her lust for him, and had gradually eroded their love for each other in her determined rush to give him a child. A child he was afraid to father.

So far, his prayers had been answered and Jill hadn't conceived, but how long could he depend on his luck lasting?

"How was your day?" he asked, giving her a tight hug, his hands firmly planted at her waist.

 Toni Noel's love of books started in childhood, when her mother first read The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew to her. She helped start church libraries in two rural Tennessee towns and appeared before the City Planning Commission and the San Diego City Council to urge a site be purchased. As the neighborhood spokesman for the new library the City Councilman for her district invited her to turn the second shovel of dirt at the groundbreaking for the new library. Toni's fondest dream, to see one of her safe-haven-for-the-heart novels available for checkout there may soon be fulfilled. Her first release Law Breakers and Love Makers will be released in print in November.     

Toni Noel's Novels... Safe havens for the heart.