A horror/thriller equal to Poltergeist, it will have you afraid to turn the light off!
Affinity Bell, a lonely child whose only companion is the threadbare doll she's christened Mr. Moppet, roams the empty halls of Bell Manor attempting to escape the evil that pursues her. The Others, the horrifying creatures only she can see, attack young Affinity at every opportunity. But Mr. Moppet will protect her, he's told her so, and Mr. Moppet knows magic.
Tanner Dann, a world-weary writer searching for proof that ghosts actually do exist, is being called by an unknown force to Bell Manor. Will the two powerful psychics he's hired help him to discover the proof for which he's been searching, or will they too be dragged down into the noxious pit that is Bell Manor?
Evil flows through the heart of Bell Manor, pulsing and ebbing like some hideous tide. Will it drag Tanner and his friends down into its gaping maw, or will they battle back at Affinity's Window?
A horror/thriller equal to Poltergeist, it will have you afraid to turn the light off!
Affinity Bell, a lonely child whose only companion is the threadbare doll she's christened Mr. Moppet, roams the empty halls of Bell Manor attempting to escape the evil that pursues her. The Others, the horrifying creatures only she can see, attack young Affinity at every opportunity. But Mr. Moppet will protect her, he's told her so, and Mr. Moppet knows magic.
Tanner Dann, a world-weary writer searching for proof that ghosts actually do exist, is being called by an unknown force to Bell Manor. Will the two powerful psychics he's hired help him to discover the proof for which he's been searching, or will they too be dragged down into the noxious pit that is Bell Manor?
Evil flows through the heart of Bell Manor, pulsing and ebbing like some hideous tide. Will it drag Tanner and his friends down into its gaping maw, or will they battle back at Affinity's Window?
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Overview
A horror/thriller equal to Poltergeist, it will have you afraid to turn the light off!
Affinity Bell, a lonely child whose only companion is the threadbare doll she's christened Mr. Moppet, roams the empty halls of Bell Manor attempting to escape the evil that pursues her. The Others, the horrifying creatures only she can see, attack young Affinity at every opportunity. But Mr. Moppet will protect her, he's told her so, and Mr. Moppet knows magic.
Tanner Dann, a world-weary writer searching for proof that ghosts actually do exist, is being called by an unknown force to Bell Manor. Will the two powerful psychics he's hired help him to discover the proof for which he's been searching, or will they too be dragged down into the noxious pit that is Bell Manor?
Evil flows through the heart of Bell Manor, pulsing and ebbing like some hideous tide. Will it drag Tanner and his friends down into its gaping maw, or will they battle back at Affinity's Window?
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781942981954 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | W & B Publishers Inc. |
| Publication date: | 01/03/2017 |
| Pages: | 292 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Chapter One
Emerging from her bedroom aboard the gleaming red tricycle she'd named Mercury, Affinity Bell peddled furiously across the second floor landing toward the stairs. Her long black hair streaming out behind her like the multi-colored tassels dangling from the handle bars of the trike, she raced alongside the railing that overlooked the enormous foyer below. The trike's rear wheels squealed loudly, the sound bouncing from wall to wall and ceiling to floor. She'd promised herself many times that she would oil them, but she found that she actually liked the noise. It was almost like having a police siren. Coming to stop at the top of the long curving stair that wound its way to the first floor entry, she climbed off of Mercury and looked at herself in the wall mirror. She smiled.
Green eyes flecked with gold stared back at her above a winning childish smile that was missing a single front tooth. The other tooth was ready to come out any day now, and she planned to put both under her pillow when it did. Patting the pocket on her blue and white sun dress, she felt the reassuring lump of the tooth she'd been carrying around for several days now. Wondering what might be for breakfast today, she was distracted by the sudden throbbing in her fingers. Mr. Moppet's love nips were smarting again. The bandages she'd wrapped herself, and she was really quite proud of this achievement, were coming off.
Lifting her hand, she studied her attempt at first aid. The bandage on her left index finger was fine as far as she could tell. A little loose, but still holding its own. The red spot of blood seeping through was dried to a hardened shell. But the cut on her thumb, the one where Mr. Moppet had bitten her the hardest, was bleeding again, and the tape was peeling off to boot. Reaching down to the white wicker basket mounted on the front of Mercury, she picked up the doll and showed him her damaged fingers again.
Holding his black button eyes level with her thumb, she remonstrated, "See what you did to me? Sometimes I wonder whose side you're really on."
He stared up at her, his mouth twitching slightly at the corners, but said nothing. Pulling the tape free from the bandage beneath, she readjusted the wrap and taped the ends back up. Looking appraisingly at the blood spotted wrappings, she figured they would hold through breakfast, hopefully. She was hungry this morning, and she really didn't want to go back to her bathroom and wrap everything over again. Staring down through the mahogany newel posts to the marble foyer below, she inhaled deeply and tried again to identify breakfast. But sadly the kitchen was just too far away. She knew her mother was in there making her something, though. Her mother was always in the kitchen.
Turning around, she checked herself in the mirror one more time before descending to the first floor in search of breakfast. She thought the girl staring back at her was beautiful, just beautiful. She was wearing her favorite outfit today, her blue and white sun dress with the black patent leather belt and shoes to match. She'd brushed her long, luxuriant black hair one hundred strokes this morning, on each side of course, and it shone brilliantly in the light reflecting from the fixture above. Gently tucking Mr. Moppet behind her patent leather belt, she asked, "Comfy?"
He smiled benignly. This was one of his favorite places to ride along with her. Turning away from the mirror, she moved to the top of the stairs and stopped. These stairs were long and winding, hugging the curving wall all the way to the first floor, and she always had the impression she was descending a great and treacherous hill.
Hugging the wall beneath the portraits, a bunch of stuffy old men that had been hanging there when they'd moved in, she made the long careful trek to the bottom.
Her footfalls echoing loudly across the white and gold marble floor of the foyer, she crisscrossed through square patches of sunlight streaming in through the front windows as she made her way to the dining room. Her father had yet to hire a new household staff, so she knew she would find her mother in the kitchen making breakfast. Catching the scent of what she hoped were waffles being prepared, Affinity sped up her pace.
Moving through the enormous dining room, she blew past the expensive furnishings that had yet to be set up. Boxes of crystal and glassware, china dinner sets and sterling silverware lay strewn about the Spanish tile floor, each waiting patiently to be unpacked and set up in the antique buffets and china cabinets surrounding the three section, sixteen seat dining table.
Pushing her way through the right hand door into the kitchen, always the right hand door when entering, she stopped near the stainless steel prep station and looked across to her mother. Monica Bell stood alone next to the three compartment sink, her head bent downward as if deep in thought. Wearing an exquisitely embroidered emerald dressing gown, her long blond hair falling gracefully about her shoulders, she turned toward her daughter when she heard the kitchen door swing shut.
Affinity stood next to the prep station, her hands on her hips and Mr. Moppet tucked snuggly behind her belt, and she began to grow angry. Without turning her head, Affinity's mother tried to smile at her daughter as if nothing were wrong. Affinity could plainly see she'd been crying.
"Mother?" Affinity spoke softly.
Monica Bell turned. Tears rested on her pale cheeks and her blue eyes were faded and dim, sunken into hollows that were swollen and red from crying. But what truly caught Affinity's attention was the deep purple bruise on her mother's right cheek, just above the delicate line of her jaw. Her father had been moving about last night, before she'd gone up to bed, but she'd convinced herself that he wouldn't hit her mother, again. He'd promised. He'd told her how things would be different this time, how this new house would be a fresh start for all of them. The thump she'd heard when she'd been looking through her window this morning occurred to her, and she shuddered.
Her anger rising, she looked up at her mother and asked, "Where is he, mommy?" Mr. Moppet wriggled against her stomach.
Wiping the tears from her face with the back of her hands, her mother said, "It's not what you think, sweet pea. Mommy fell down and hit the sink. Now go sit down at the table and I'll get your breakfast."
"He promised!" Affinity stated angrily. "He said things would be different this time. Where is he, mommy? Is he in the basement?"
Beginning to grow annoyed with her daughter's willfulness, Monica blurted, "Go and sit down, child! I don't want to have to tell you again. Daddy didn't do this."
She probed gingerly at the edges of the swollen bruise. "I fell down and hit my face on the edge of the sink. Now that's the end of it."
Affinity's hand stole to the top of Mr. Moppet's head and began to stroke his yellow yarn hair. The doll responded by tingling lightly like a purring cat. Stepping toward her mother, she looked up into her teary blue eyes and asked, "How can you be such a weakling, mommy? How can you let him keep doing this to you?"
Continuing to stroke Mr. Moppet lovingly, she said, "We would never let daddy do that to us, would we, Mr. Moppet?"
"You don't understand, Affinity. You're just too young to understand." Her mother started crying again, the fresh tears dropping from her face to the ceramic tile floor.
"Now go sit down and mommy will bring you your breakfast." Trying to sound cheerful, she added hastily, "It's waffles today, sweet pea. Won't that be good?"
"He's in his workshop, isn't he?" Affinity asked, as if she'd heard nothing of what her mother had said. When Monica didn't answer, the little girl stepped menacingly forward, one hand on her hip and the other on Mr. Moppet. Monica Bell flinched as her eyes came to rest on the doll. She hated that damn doll.
"Yes, he's in his workshop, dear, but don't you bother him. You know how he hates to be bothered in his workshop. Be mommy's sweet pea and go sit down."
Turning on her patent leather heel, Affinity strode purposefully from the kitchen. Leaving through the right hand door, as Mr. Giles had instructed her was proper, she was going to the basement to confront Taylor Bell. He'd promised things would be different this time. He'd hugged her, and he'd promised. He'd lied. Her hand now clutching Mr. Moppet tightly, she left the large dining room and moved through the foyer toward the back of the house, toward the basement, and toward her promise breaking father.
***
The back side of the mansion was dark. Her father's workmen had spent all their time so far working on his stupid bells. They'd installed the granite bell in the front fountain, the three front doors inlaid with the Bell coat of arms, and the new marble foyer floor, complete with an enormous silver bell inside a gold filigreed circle. They were only just now getting to the back side of the main house and everything was practically covered in construction. She didn't like coming back here, it scared her, and now even more so with the coming of the others. But she was angry, and her impulse to confront her father wouldn't be denied. Pulling Mr. Moppet out from behind her shiny patent leather belt, holding him before her like a shield against the darkness, she walked cautiously down the narrow corridor leading to the basement door.
The rooms on either side of the wood floored hallway were full of furniture that was still covered in white tarps and sheets to keep it clean while the workmen finished the remodeling. The windows remained covered, their shades pulled down in an attempt to keep the glass free of dust, the effect of which filled each room with long gray and black shadows. The dark lumps of tarp covered furniture reminded Affinity of snow mounds at dusk in some long forgotten fairy tale. She slowed her steps as she made her way along past each room, the floor creaking and groaning even under her slight build. Gripping Mr. Moppet too tightly again, and thankfully not being bitten for once, she stopped in front of what was to become her father's den. Peering inside, she recalled that she didn't like his den at the old house, and she found she liked this one even less.
The basement door still some ways off to her left, she stepped inside the soon to be den and stopped. Had she heard a noise? Had she seen movement on the other side of her father's shrouded desk? Thoughts of the others crept into her mind as she gazed around the large room. Wood panel walls, empty until the remodel was complete, surrounded a large central pile of furniture that resided under an enormous paint spattered tarp. To her right was his desk, also under a tarp, and behind it stood the fireplace. Standing open like a gaping black maw, it practically filled the entire wall behind his desk. The fireplace scared her, as so much in this end of the house seemed to, and she knew it was easily large enough for her to walk straight into if she so chose. But she knew she would never do that. It looked too much like a mouth. A giant, child swallowing mouth. Then she heard the noise again, and she jumped.
The tarp draped over her father's desk shifted. Ripples barely visible in the dim light moved across the tarp's surface as if a fish had jumped in a pond. Thinking that someone might be playing a trick on her, she turned toward the desk. Who was hiding back there? One of daddy's workmen playing a cruel joke maybe? No, they wouldn't be here today, today was Saturday. Gripping Mr. Moppet tighter still, she sidled slowly to her right in an attempt to get a look behind the desk without actually getting any closer. A scraping noise on the floor behind the desk caused her to stop.
Holding Mr. Moppet threateningly before her, she asked the darkness, "Who's back there?"
When there was no reply, she stated angrily, "My daddy will fire you if you don't come out this instant." Still nothing.
Sidling further to her right, her trembling hand causing Mr. Moppet to dance almost merrily, she peered around the edge of the tarp covered desk and gasped. A dark gray blur leapt from the desk into the fireplace. Realization dawning on her, she smiled. A squirrel! That's all it was! It must have come down the chimney. Relief flooding through her, but still holding Mr. Moppet in front of herself for just in case, she edged toward the fireplace.
Treading slowly and lightly, trying her best to move without making a sound, she came to stand between her father's desk and the gray stone hearth. A chill wrapped itself around her, causing her to hug herself as she looked into the gray, ash covered darkness. Mr. Moppet, now behind her back as she fought the sudden chill, began to wriggle intensely. Something is upsetting him. Dropping her arms and bringing the doll back around in front of her, intending to ask him just what was upsetting him so, she stopped when her eye was drawn to the floor of the empty firebox. Resting on the blackened brick surface was a dead squirrel.
Its body bloated in death, its gray fur was matted and torn in several places, exposing bits of chalky white bone. The creature's legs stuck out at odd angles, and its mouth was open wide to expose a swollen black tongue surrounded by tiny white teeth. The animal had obviously been dead for quite a while. Wondering what had happened to the squirrel she'd just seen run into the fireplace, Affinity leaned forward so her head was almost inside the hearth. That's when she knew someone was behind her.
Turning from the fireplace, afraid of being caught between the stone hearth and her father's desk, she bolted to the far corner of the room, hoping to blend in with the shadows that lingered there as if they had nowhere else to go.
One of the others crept into the room. Its blood red eyes glowing amid a cloud of gray white mist, its scaly gray tentacles slithering out like the forked tongues of multiple snakes tasting hungrily at the air, it moved its floating bulk toward her father's desk. Cold seized Affinity as it drew near, causing gooseflesh to rise up on her arms and the back of her neck. She'd never been this close to one of them before, and she was repulsed and terrified at the same time.
The wood paneling on the walls behind her began to pucker and crack, as if it were being burned by an uneen fire. Her breath froze before her in great white puffs as the creature closed in. A lone tentacle shot out toward the desk and grabbed the filthy tarp, snatching it up and yanking it free of the desk. Piles of paper cascaded to the floor in a dark white avalanche. Boxes toppled over and pencils rolled and clattered to the hardwood floor. Affinity was struck with such fear, and such mind numbing cold, that she could barely move. Gripping Mr. Moppet, she held him before her and called on his magic.
"Get away from me!" she roared through chattering teeth.
The creature turned suddenly aside, moving its great gray misty bulk toward the fireplace. Heartened by the fact that Mr. Moppet seemed to be having some effect on the creature, Affinity stepped away from the wall. The other, its tentacles slithering and writhing about it like so many worms in the bottom of a bait can, moved between the desk and the fireplace. For the moment it seemed disinterested in Affinity, and feeling Mr. Moppet wriggle wildly in her hand, she knew he wanted to press this advantage. Fear gripped her. Her bladder tightened and her bowels loosened, but she kept her head. Mr. Moppet rewarded her courage with a tingling purr, then the two of them advanced.
Moving closer and closer, the doll held before her like a shield, Affinity suddenly stopped when the creature turned its attention back upon her. The ruby red eyes fell upon her like a hammer blow, robbing the breath from her body and cultivating pictures in her mind of the slow death she would suffer if she didn't break off this senseless attack. Her knees shaking, her lips quivering, she moved in. It was time for Mr. Moppet to work his magic.
Slashing her magical doll out in front of her in wide, sweeping arcs, Affinity pinned the thing against her father's desk. It screamed in agony as Mr. Moppet tore into its ethereal flesh. She smiled as she heard its agonized cries, and her confidence grew. The monster retreated around the desk and moved toward the middle of the room, taking its frigid aura and slithering tentacles with it. Feeling her extremities beginning to thaw, feeling her courage continue to grow, Affinity advanced on the fleeing creature. Her doll held out in front of her like a warrior's spear, swiping back and forth at the air between her and the monster, she shouted, "I told you to leave me alone. I told you!"
The crimson eyes flickered, turning first to black, and then to gray. With a moan that sounded as if it originated deep inside a well, the horrible eyes that had terrified her over and over through her bedroom window blinked out. Like a fog on the morning wind its body dissipated, drifting lazily away in tatters. As if from afar she could hear its screams as it fled her wrath. Moving into the middle of the large den, Affinity stopped and looked around. Mr. Moppet wriggled and danced excitedly in her hand as he too felt the demon run before their fury.
Shaking from a combination of fear and exaltation, Affinity lowered her arms and stood panting as she looked around the room. She'd beaten the other back, but she knew it was only because the creature had been alone. If both of the others had cornered her this way she wasn't sure Mr. Moppet could have driven them off. How did they get in? She'd watched the window all morning. Something was wrong. She needed to check the window, right away.
Her mother's face forgotten for the moment, her trip to the basement to confront her father forgotten for the moment, Affinity tucked Mr. Moppet safely away behind her patent leather belt and bolted from the room. Running as fast as she could, her shiny new shoes clicking loudly on the marble floor of the foyer, she ran up the stairs to the second floor. Passing Mercury at the top of the stairs without so much as a glance, she practically flew down the long balcony toward her bedroom. She was positive she'd left the window closed. There was no way the others should have been able to get inside, no way! But they were in here alright, and she had to know how.
Flinging the door open so hard the knob slammed into the inside wall with loud bang, she bounded into the middle of her bedroom. Running past her dressing table, past her four poster bed, she slid to a halt in front of the window. Her breath coming in ragged, winded puffs, she looked out through the wide open window to the frosty morning beyond and screamed.