Jessie’s Ghosts
Eleven year-old Jessie lives with her older sister Sarah, following the death of theirparents. But during school holidays she stays with Nanna who is old and hard of hearing. As Sarah drops her off at the family farm, Jessie resigns herself to yet another boring week. But then she starts hearing voices in the night and discovers that a haunted portrait holds an ancient family secret.
Buy it now! at: http://www.doctorzed.com/ebooks/fiction/jessiesghosts.html
Excerpt
At first Jessie thought she was dreaming, like Nanna had suggested. She couldn’t believe the voice had woken her yet again.
It had been late when she had finally fallen asleep. Eager for Cairo Jim to solve his archaeological mystery, Jessie had snuggled up in bed with her book until she had finished it. Now she sighed and stepped down onto the pink rug. Her door was half open; in her tiredness she had forgotten to close it.
Forgetting her slippers, Jessie tiptoed across the cold timber floor and slipped out through the open door, into the hall. A light was on. Nanna must have been tired too and forgotten to turn it off, she thought, as she stepped out into the hall. And stopped.
There was a light. But it wasn’t any ordinary light. It was more like a glow. And it was coming from the portrait on the hall wall; the portrait of her grandfather’s family.
Jessie’s knees trembled and her hands began to shake. Gripping the door frame, she swallowed hard as she continued to stare down at the portrait, her eyes wide with fear.
The portrait was glowing, and the lady’s voice she had heard these past nights was coming out of the portrait, she was sure of it.
All of a sudden she realised she had stopped breathing and as she did, she coughed. The glow died and the voice stopped.
Jessie couldn’t move. She clung to the door frame, not sure now of what she had seen and heard. Gradually she could feel her legs again and raced back into her room, pulling the door firmly shut behind her.
She stood for a moment, shaking, as the cold wrapped itself around her and then she dived into bed, pulling the doona up and over her head and rubbing her hands up and down her arms.
What did it mean? The light, and the voice? What was it? Who was it? And how did it get there?
Did Nanna know about this?
Jessie assumed not, as Nanna wouldn’t be able to hear anything at night. And if I tell her, Jessie thought, she won’t believe me. Would anyone?
Did I really see the portrait glowing? And did a lady really speak? Jessie tossed from side to side in the bed, her thoughts spinning like a merry-go-round until she fell into an unsettled sleep.