Ben Curtis, her fiance thought the window was boarded up. He didn't like the idea. In fact, he didn't like the old Queen Anne Victorian house. Didn't like the idea Anna wanted to fix up the attic as an office, a place to write. Heck, Ben didn't even like the idea she was an author. He pointed it out to her often enough. Asked why she couldn't get a real job like his associate, Connie.
Sometimes Anna wondered why they were together. They had little in common. Determined to uncover the window, she hired a contractor Connie recommended. A sexy contractor. When he agreed with Anna about knocking down the wall, Ben suggested he and Anna do it.
Not one to refuse free labor, she agreed and knock down the wall they did. That's when the shadows appeared hovering over an old chest, beckoning to her.
Of course Ben thought it was her imagination.
Shadows in the Attic is now available in print. You can order it from your local bookstore.
Excerpt::
Whack! I swung the hammer, and widened the hole in the attic wall. Even through the plaster dust, I smelled flowers. Roses and something else—lily of the valley—that was it. One more whack and a section of the wall collapsed.
"Ben, look!" I stepped through the opening and stared into the room. A dusty, women's antique French desk stood in the center of the large room. The wall behind it held book shelves still lined with books. Two chairs grouped, in front of the window, around a table that held a tarnished silver tea set.
I spun around the room. "My God, what is this?" Old pictures hung on faded rose wallpaper. Dim light, from the dirty, stained glass window in the alcove, cast eerie shadows. "This is unbelievable."
Shadowy figures in the corner of the room hovered over a carved trunk. I swore they beckoned to me. At first I thought my eyes were playing tricks. Between the dust and the dim light, but no, the shadows were there, plain as day.
"Ben, do you see that?"
"See what?" Ben brushed the dust off his hands and looked at them in disust.
I held back a giggle. I couldn't help it, he looked so uncomfortable. Physical labor definitely wasn’t Ben's cup of tea. I was still trying to figure out why he helped me. He stepped through the opening and looked at me.
"Shadows over that trunk." I held back, dying to know what was in it, but half afraid to check it out.
"Probably cobwebs." The look on Ben's face said it all.
I sighed. "Cobwebs, right.”
"There you go again. You and that overactive imagination. I suppose now you're going to go ahead with the hare-brained idea of yours." He took a couple steps into the room, stopped next to the desk, and opened a drawer. "Hm, Look at this." He pulled a sheet of stationary out of the drawer. "Mary Elizabeth Gilbert, wonder who she was."
I took the stationary from him. A bouquet of lily of the valley embossed the top of the page above her name. Again, the shadows appeared and beckoned to me. "Those aren't cobwebs, Ben. Look."
Like I didn't know the difference between shadows and cobwebs. Definitely shadows. Willowy figures hovered over the trunk. Come open it, they seemed to say. There was a sense of urgency about them, yet I didn't feel threatened. Giving in to the urge, I hurried to the trunk and lifted the decorative lid. "Oh, look at this!" I lifted a pearl handled hairbrush out of the trunk. "It's beautiful." A shadowy figure floated above it. Then, I lifted out a corset and held the tiny form in front of me. One of the shadowy figures moved closer, almost on top of me.
"Ugh, I can't imagine having to wear one of these." Suddenly, my stomach and chest tightened. I lost my breath, gasped, and sunk to my knees. The corset fell from my hand. The shadows backed off. I couldn’t catch my breath.
When I opened my eyes, Ben stood over me. "Are you okay? What happened? You looked like you were going to pass out."
Finally able to take a deep breath, I let it out slowly. "I...I don't know. I couldn't breathe. It felt like someone was squeezing the life out of me." I looked at the corset lying on the dusty floor. What just happened here? A shadowy figure lingered nearby. What was it trying to tell me?
"I think we better get out of this dust for a while, get some fresh air." Ben helped me to my feet. "You can come up later. I know how anxious you are to go through that trunk. There's no stopping you now, is there?"
I hated to leave, but Ben was right. I had inhaled an awful lot of dust. "Ben do you smell flowers—roses or lily of the valley?"
"All I smell is plaster and years of dust. Roses, are you sure you're okay?" He furrowed his brow and gave me one of those disapproving looks that said I was nuts. I hated that look.
