Free The Raven Mocker by Aiden James Page A

mousse...strawberry.”
    She smiled, nervous, her soft brown eyes confirming her unease. Sara returned her smile with a compassionate but wan smile of her own. She carried an additional bag to the blue duffle she brought with her in October, when working to cure the family of the previous haunting. The brown leather carrier appeared stuffed to capacity. Heavier than the duffle, Sara sat it down on the floor and offered a warm embrace to both Janice and Miriam.
    “ The mousse sounds delightful, Jan,” Sara told her, after hanging her coat and cap on the hall tree in the foyer and picking up the carrier while Miriam grabbed the duffle. They moved into the living room, where everyone else had gathered.
    Despite the decorated fir’s splendor, the atmosphere was tense and gloomy. The kids huddled on the sofa with their great aunt from Tennessee, while David tended the fire losing its battle with the prevalent chill that gripped the room.
    “ I imagine none of what you’re presently doing has made a difference as far as heating your home,” Sara observed, before sitting down next to Janice on the loveseat. She grabbed her duffle and pulled it up on her lap. Her curly blond hair that normally hung down to the middle of her back fell forward, partially concealing her face. She looked over at the Hobbs’ children, her green eyes like chipped emeralds as she gazed through her hair before brushing it away from her face. A slight smirk appeared.
    “ What’s so funny?” asked Janice.
    “ Perhaps it’s nothing,” she replied. “I was thinking about the last time we were all gathered together in this room, back in October…. How I sensed the entity looked at us from afar, as compared to now, when its essence moves freely among us.”
    She paused for a moment, the smirk fading to a serious look. It appeared she listened to something inaudible to everyone else.
    “ What do you hear?” asked Miriam, her nervous tone drawing worried looks from the children.
    David noticed that Janice seemed just as anxious. Ruth looked lost, as if confused how the unsettling event from this morning could completely derail the holiday spirit.
    “ I’m listening to the spirit’s thoughts—not an actual voice, at least not right now,” said Sara, her voice solemn. “The spirit is male in orientation. A little envious back then, he wonders now why he found us so alluring. He can’t relate to any of what Christmas is about, why we’re so enamored with such a ‘pretentious’ holiday. He laughs in contempt, longing for the restoration of a world he once knew and reigned in, whatever that means….”
    Her words trailed off as if straining to hear the entity’s other thoughts. She shook her head when she could no longer tap into its musings.
    Frigid air drifted down from the living room’s ceiling, as if the air conditioner had just been turned on. The flames in the fireplace momentarily retreated. David added two smaller pine logs while prodding the other logs with a poker. It wasn’t enough to ward off the deepening chill, and everyone looked anxiously for guidance from Sara, whose gaze moved to the ceiling fan/light in the middle of the room.
    “ Chris told Miriam and me about an old withered man who’s been hanging around the living room for the past week.”
    David’s comment drew a scornful look from Miriam and one aghast from his youngest child. Christopher hung his head, perhaps out of fear for what the old man’s spirit would do to him for revealing what he’d seen of it.
    “ What?!” said David, indignant.
    “ You knew Chris didn’t want anyone else knowing about that!!” Miriam seethed. “What in the hell are you thinking—couldn’t you wait to tell Sara about that in private??” She moved over to where Christopher sat, still holding David in her heated gaze.
    “ I’m so sorry, honey,” she said quietly, while Ruth patted Christopher’s shoulders.
    “ What the hell am I thinking?? It should be what the hell are