BLURB:
On the Caribbean island of
Maurray, spoiled-rotten, fifteen-year-old Hanna wakes up to a nightmare. She is
not the daughter of an aristocrat but the orphan of a Gypsy. She is the
descendant to a mystical Gypsy tribe. Their magic is strong and has lasted six
hundred years. Ornella, the tribe’s guardian, arrives at the island with her
mutt, Count Dracula, to guide Hanna. Hanna is told she must embrace her
heritage or die at the ripe age of seventeen. But Hanna does the unthinkable,
she chooses death. She hates Gypsies and would rather die. What she doesn’t
know is that her death will destroy the entire tribe. What she also doesn’t
know is how persuasive Ornella can be. The nightmare begins.
CHAPTER ONE
Caribbean Island of Maurray
The wind blasted against her face, blowing her hair back and
filling her mouth with a bitter taste.
Hanna
covered her head with her hands. Oh, my God. Her hair was stiff and knotted,
like a freaking bird’s nest. No way. Her hair did not knot. No knots. Ever.
Hanna pulled on a strand, intending to untangle it and screamed. Besides
knotting her hair, the wind was changing its color? Brown…deadpan brown? The
color…of dog poop. Never would she be caught with that vile color. She would
rather be dead than have that hair color. What had happened to her beautiful
bright-gold, shiny hair?
She screamed at her brother
John to close the window and fought her way to
her hairbrush which hovered in the air, taunting her, daring her to grab it.
Hanna’s hand shot out. She stretched her arm. She
was but inches from the brush’s black handle…she almost had it…John hadn’t
moved. Hanna was about to call out to him again when a dark shadow covered the
window. She froze and dropped her hand as she saw a face with sagging, dry skin
and hollowed cheeks. His bald head, more of a skull with a thin layer of skin stretched over it, had black sores the size of
squashed grapes, oozing pus. He looked mummified.
Mummy-Man’s meatless lips parted exposing rotten teeth. The
anger in his sunken eyes as he jumped onto the windowsill held the only
telltale sign of life. His bony fingers grabbed the window frame and he sprang towards Hanna. Hanna faltered back until she hit the
wall. Mummy-Man let out an angry roar, blasting Hanna with the smell of rotten,
decayed flesh. Hanna gagged. She had a sensitive stomach, any strong smell made
her gag, if not throw up. Even in her dreams? Hanna held her breath so as not
to barf.
John stepped back and looked up at the ceiling, unaware of
the danger. Hanna yelled at John as Mummy-Man’s hand shot to grab him. John
continued to look up, as if he weren’t there. Didn’t he see the disgusting
creature inches away?
Hanna
screamed at John again, telling him to duck. Bang, the shutter crashed against
the outside wall. Mummy-Man and John were sucked violently out. The hairbrush
followed. Hanna tried to call after John, but instead released a snort. She
opened her eyes. Had she really snorted? Like a pig? She gasped and covered her
mouth.
How disgusting.
A pig.
Hanna swallowed. Her mouth tasted foul. Even more disgusting
than the snort. Gross. Hanna’s right hand shot out from under the sheets and
grabbed the glass of water by her bed. She took a large gulp, swished it around
her mouth and swallowed. She did not want to throw up. A second swish took the
bad taste away. She lay back down.
Why was her
room so bright? Why were the shutters wide open? She sat up in bed and saw the
large portrait of Princess Diana hanging lopsided on the wall opposite the
window. Oh, no, had her dream come true? She ran her hands through her hair. A
sigh of relief left her plump lips as she found no knots. She inspected several
strands. She was still blond. Hanna eyed the Princess, her idol, whose shy
smile and bright blue eyes had captured the world. There wasn’t even a breeze, so why was Lady Di lopsided?
The sweet perfume of daylilies drifted in from the garden
patch below Hanna’s window as Hanna climbed out of bed and stretched. Their fragrance
and the sunlight eased her feverish mind,
pushing the nightmare aside. She turned to the fireplace and her eyes went wide.
Her heart pounded inside her head and the scream that came out of her mouth
resounded through the Williams’ English-style mansion. The ten-bedroom brick
house, with its impeccable flowerbeds and design hedges, was located in Maurray
City’s most elite neighborhood, the King James. The neighbors were far enough
not to have heard Hanna, but that would not be the case for the other residents
of the prestigious mansion: John Williams III, his estranged, but strangely
still attached wife Camilla, and John, their offspring, were all jolted awake.
However, it wasn’t any of them who came to find out why Hanna was screaming.
It was Vani, the five-foot Guatemalan housekeeper. She hurried
into the room and came to a halt a few feet from Hanna, who stood near her bed facing
the fireplace.
Vani looked around the room. She stretched her neck to check
the red couch facing the terrace doors in the small living room, then gave
Hanna a quick inspection. “What, Miss Hanna? Why you scream?” Vani looked
around again. “Someone here?”
Hanna stood frozen, her eyes were all that moved, from the
fireplace to the maid and back. Her lips seemed to be glued shut, or her jaw
muscles were frozen, whichever it was, she just couldn’t speak. Vani clapped
her hands a few inches from Hanna’s face, missing Hanna’s nose by inches. Hanna
jolted back to life and turned to glare at Vani. Rage, she felt rage.
Vani gasped as Hanna leaned into her with a deranged look on
her face.
“Oh, devil’s look,” Vani hissed under her breath. She raised
her arms to block any possible blows. “Miss Hanna, stop acting like that. You
possessed by bad spirit.”
“What happened to my doll?” Hanna finally yelled. Her words
came out in a burst, forcing Vani to look away as spittle sprayed her face.
Vani took two steps back. “What doll?”
Hanna jabbed a finger at the
mantle where her antique French doll stood
inside its thick glass case, with both arms lying on the bottom. “I only have
one doll. How did her arms fall off?”
Vani turned her black eyes to the doll and shuddered. “Doll
is old. Maybe arms get tired…”
Hanna continued to glare at Vani. The shudder, Hanna didn’t
like the shudder. Why did Vani always shudder when Hanna mentioned the doll?
“You moved it, didn’t you?”
Vani took another step back. “No…no…I don’t come in while
you sleeping.”
“Liar.” Hanna picked up her shoe and threw it at Vani.
“Liar.”
Vani ducked. “I never touch…that…evil doll.” Vani made the
sign of the cross as she retreated to the door.
“I’m going to tell my grandfather you broke my doll.”
“Go, tell what you want, chica loca,” Vani hissed,
ducking out as Hanna threw the second shoe.
The shoe hit the door and chipped off a flake of white
paint. Only when the shoe fell to the floor did Hanna realize what she had just
done. She looked at her shaking hands as if they belonged to someone else. Then
she slumped onto the bed crying.
There was a hole inside her chest. A huge dark hole…a loss,
she had lost something. Hanna turned to the
doll. She wished she could hug it and make the pain go away. The eighteenth-century
doll, with its delicate features, diamond tiara and yellow-laced gown, was all
she had left of her mother. That doll gave Hanna great comfort every day. It
was her mother Marie watching over her. Marie, a descendant of the French
aristocracy, had died in childbirth. On Hanna’s fifth birthday, her grandfather
John II had brought the doll and placed it on the mantelpiece. For ten years it
hadn’t been moved, so she thought. How could this happen? Now her doll looked
like a cheap prop from a B-horror film. Hanna shuddered. Oh, my God, she’d
shuddered? Was shuddering contagious?
Maybe Vani was right, but not about the doll. There was
something evil going on. Something evil had broken her doll. The shutters
banged again, making Hanna jump. She stared at the window and wiped her face.
She had locked those shutters before going to bed. She was sure of it. Hanna
stood and walked over to the window. She pulled the shutters closed, then
changed her mind and threw them open, fastening them to the slip-hooks on the
outside wall.
No, the doll wasn’t evil. Hanna twisted around and made her
way back to the fireplace. She placed a gentle kiss on the glass case and
headed to the bathroom to get ready for school. Her mind stayed with the doll
while her green eyes watched her hand comb her blond strands; a robot doing its
routine chore. She would get it fixed. Hanna applied black mascara and some
gloss to her lips, wondering if the doll’s arms falling off could be an omen.
Omens were an obsession with her grandmother Elizabeth; she
saw omens in everything and everywhere. While some on the island called
Elizabeth a witch, Hanna thought of her as spiritual, albeit eerie. Vani called
her Chupacabra, the mythical goat-bloodsucking demon creature. Last week, when
Hanna had told Elizabeth she’d dreamt of a hand stabbing her doll in the back,
her grandmother explained it forewarned betrayal. Elizabeth told Hanna to be
vigilant. Her grandmother didn’t like the doll. Hanna wondered what she would
say about the doll’s fallen arms. As she headed across the bedroom, the
shutters banged again. Hanna twirled around wide-eyed. That was not possible.
Shutters didn’t get loose from those hooks. Did they? Perhaps the hooks were
weak.
She went back to her bed and slipped her hand under her
pillow and removed an old, faded black-and-white picture of a young woman
sitting sideways smiling at the camera. Marie wore her dark-blond hair up in a
loose bun known as the French twist. Her mother had a kind face. Her almond-brown
eyes and small full lips held a childish innocence. Her beaded evening gown
spilled to the floor around her legs. She wore a delicate diamond necklace and
matching diamond earrings.
The photo was quite creased from all the nights Hanna held
it under her pillow while falling asleep. She wished she had more pictures, but
her grandmamma told her Marie was extremely shy, a recluse almost, and didn’t
allow her picture to be taken. This had been an exception, taken two days
before her entire family had been wiped out during an earthquake in France.
Poor Marie’s life had been a sequence of tragedies. Hanna kissed the picture
and put it away in the bedside table drawer as she did every morning so no one
would touch it. She would give anything to have known her.
In the kitchen she found John eating a large bowl of honey-puff
cereal. The thirteen-year-old geek couldn’t be more different from Hanna. In
looks, he took after his mother Camilla, dark-blond hair and brown eyes. As to
his high IQ, that was a mystery. Hanna sat down next to John and looked at the
bowl with a yellow mush. “Vani, is this diet banana?”
“Yes, yes. Diet
banana,” Vani called from within the pantry.
John had told Hanna that the “diet banana” was a lie,
invented by Vani to get around Hanna’s demand for a fruit larger than a grape,
with only fifty calories. Hanna didn’t believe him.
“So, what happened? Did your Prada shoes run off with your
Versace bag?” John asked.
Hanna paused to consider if John might have messed with her
doll. She watched him stuff a large spoonful of cereal into his mouth.
John felt her stare. “What?”
“Did you happen to sneak into my room this morning?”
“Ha, ha. I don’t have a death wish. Why? What’s missing?”
“Someone broke my doll’s arms.”
John shuddered and Hanna caught him doing it. “What’s with
all the shuddering? That doll is not evil.”
John took another spoonful of cereal and turned back to
watch Hanna.
“I have to get it fixed,” Hanna said. She ate the mush and
drank her lemon juice.
“Get what fixed?”
“The doll, John, the doll. Is there anything stuck in my
teeth?”
“Mush doesn’t stick to teeth. Grandmamma might know of
someone.”
She might, but Hanna wouldn’t ask her. Grandmamma would use
the excuse to disappear with it. But her grandfather would help. “Maybe
Grandpapa.” Hanna took out her phone and hit speed dial. John II didn’t pick
up. He always picked up for her. Why wasn’t he picking up? Had something
happened to him?
John’s face lit up. “Did you talk to him about the car?”
“Not yet. I think there’s still time for that.”
John wanted their grandfather’s 1960 Mustang for his
sixteenth birthday. He knew their paternal grandfather had a soft spot for Hanna.
The doorbell rang. That would be Thomas, their driver,
letting them know it was time to go. John grabbed his backpack while Hanna
grabbed her Chanel handbag and one notebook. The two headed for the limousine.
Hanna pressed redial as she walked out the front door, but hung up before the
phone began to ring. It had been no nightmare. In the daylily patch beneath her
window was a blackened area the shape of a body. Mummy-man.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
I am Brazilian born and raised, of American
parents. I live in Sao Paulo with my third husband and children. I studied
at the American school in Brazil, in boarding schools in Switzerland and the
US. I have a BA in English Literature from FIU. I published a YA trilogy in
Brazil and another YA novel in Turkey in 2001, now in its fifth
edition. My passion is history and spiritualism. Besides Veiled Mist, I have
another YA novel, Fallen Ruler, being released soon.
Find me online
·
Twitter @ eleanortbeaty
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