“Popped in the head! They were popped in the head!”
And although we did not tell the therapist this, we believed Lily completely when she told us her father had come to her as a ghost. Ashland and I also believed her when she told us about the Thing Under the Bed. Ashland had been successful in connecting with Lily’s mother and had eventually moved her on, but it had been a hard thing for him. For us all. To think that it had been her mother under the bed scratching and clawing and wanting her to know the truth. But even in death, she had no power to actually help her daughter. If not for Ashland’s intervention, those two would have been endlessly locked in controlling Lily. Apparently, they’d lived very destructive lives up to this point. I shook my head and caught Lily watching me. I smiled at her from behind my oversized sunglasses. She didn’t smile back. What did I expect? That everything would be peachy and rosy? Ashland glanced at me as if to say, Give her some time, CJ. Just give her some time.
Tears welled up in my eyes, but I didn’t dare let them flow. It was going to be hard enough to control the tears at the funeral. Again, not for my sake but for Lily’s. Who would come to this gathering? Did Chance have any friends at all? I didn’t know. Chance was to be buried alone at the Sunset River Funeral Home, a place I would never visit again after today. I never wanted to visit him again. I had to come to peace with the fact that Chance was nothing like my mother or me. He had been his father’s son from the word go.
His late wife’s family had rightly claimed her body. Who could blame them? Chance had killed her. He’d shot her in the head before he shot himself. A murder-suicide—that’s what the detectives had found. Who knew what demons Chance wrestled with—they must have been terrible ones for him to resort to murder and suicide.
Lily was propped up on her hand, and her eyes were closing. Good. She needed sleep just like I did. But I didn’t dare go to sleep. Not in the car. Not with so many people so close. I just couldn’t stand it. I had barely had enough time to process my experience at Gracefield. Barely enough time to work through all that before having to deal with this. But all that had to wait. Mantius Wade and the Starletts were waiting for me. The battle wasn’t over yet. Amara called me twice, but I couldn’t commit to helping her clear the house.
Not yet. I had no time for anyone or anything except for my family. AJ didn’t want us to leave him behind, but it was for the best. At least for the afternoon. We’d be back in a few hours.
A few more hours, and this would be all over.
I hadn’t meant to close my eyes, but I did. It was easy to drift off to sleep for some reason. I’d barely dipped into the gray fog of a light sleep when my niece appeared. She clutched my hand, and I squeezed hers. Then she was gone again, tucked back safely into her dream world. And I stepped into mine.
I was on a beach in Haiti, and Muncie—no, Janjak was his proper name—walked beside me. His bright-eyed daughter ran ahead of us, and I could see what I had not seen before. Lily ran with her. The sand was wet beneath my toes. Ashland was laughing somewhere nearby with our son, and maybe one other. And then a thick veil of love wrapped around me. A love that would never leave me, not in this life or the next. It was the kind of love that only a family could enjoy. The love of a family who would always be together, in one form or another.
The car jolted to a stop, and I woke in surprise. We were at the funeral home. Ashland put the car in park and asked me if I was ready. I wasn’t, but we couldn’t avoid any of this. It was time to face this sad ending, but it was only an ending for Chance. Not for Lily or me. Although the terrible grief weighed on me and threatened to drag me down into a deep well of depression, the knowledge that I was not alone helped. I would never be alone. Not like Chance had been.
I got out of the car and opened Lily’s door. I extended my hand to her, and she took it with complete trust. She hugged me, and I rubbed her curly top with my hands before straightening out her hair again.
“Lily, if you don’t want to do this…”
“I have to say goodbye.” And from the seat beside her, she grabbed a sandy white seashell. I had never seen it before, but I didn’t question her. I didn’t have to wonder about where it came from either. Lily had found what she needed and what she wanted to give her father. Whether he took the invitation or not was totally up to him, but our sweet Lily was going to do what she could to help him find peace.
At last.
Read THE THREE GRACES
Book Two of the GRACEFIELD HAUNTINGS Series
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About the Author
Author of the best-selling Seven Sisters series and the Desert Queen series, M.L. Bullock has been storytelling since she was a child. A student of archaeology, she loves weaving stories that feature her favorite historical characters—including Nefertiti. She currently lives on the Gulf Coast with her family but travels frequently to explore the southern states she loves so much.
Read more from M.L. Bullock
Morgan’s Rock Series
The Haunting of Joanna Storm
The Hall of Shadows
The Nike Chronicles
Blue Water
Blue Wake
Blue Tide
The Seven Sisters Series
Seven Sisters
Moonlight Falls on Seven Sisters
Shadows Stir at Seven Sisters
The Stars that Fell
The Stars We Walked Upon
The Sun Rises Over Seven Sisters
Christmas at Seven Sisters (bonus short stories)
Ghost on a Swing (series prequel)
The Idlewood Series
The Ghosts of Idlewood
Dreams of Idlewood
The Whispering Saint
The Haunted Child
Return to Seven Sisters
(A Seven Sisters Sequel Series)
The Roses of Mobile
All the Summer Roses
Blooms Torn Asunder
A Garden of Thorns
Wreath of Roses
(A Seven Sisters Sequel Series)
Haunted Gracefield
The Gulf Coast Paranormal Series
The Ghosts of Kali Oka Road
The Ghosts of the Crescent Theater
A Haunting on Bloodgood Row
The Legend of the Ghost Queen
A Haunting at Dixie House
The Ghost Lights of Forrest Field
The Ghost of Gabrielle Bonet
The Ghost of Harrington Farm
The Creature on Crenshaw Road
A Ghostly Ride in Gulfport
The Maelstrom of the Leaf Academy
The Ghosts of Phoenix No 7
Gulf Coast Paranormal Extras
The October People
Shabby Hearts Paranormal Cozy Mystery Series
A Touch of Shabby
Shabbier by the Minute
Shabby by Night
Shabby All the Way
The Sugar Hill Series
Wife of the Left Hand
Fire on the Ramparts
The Starlight Ball
His Lovely Garden
Ghosts of Summerleigh Series
The Belles of Desire, Mississippi
The Ghost of Jeopardy Belle
The Lady in White
Loxley Belle
The Vampires of Rock and Roll Series
Elegant Black
Lost Camelot Series
Guinevere Forever
Guinevere Unconquered
The Undead Queen of Camelot
The Desert Queen Series
The Tale of Nefret
The Falcon Rises
The Kingdom of Nefertiti
The Song of the Bee-Eater
Standalone books
Ghosts on a Plane