Free Jilly-Bean (Jilly-Bean Series # 1) by Celia Vogel Page A

Mueller was resting in a guest bedroom on the second floor. Mrs. Paradis, who had not seen what happened in the barn, tried to console Mrs. Mueller: “Oh, honey, he'll be all right. The heat and the smell in that barn would knock anyone off their feet. No wonder he collapsed.” Mrs. Mueller looked numbly about, tears welling in her eyes. The well appointed room, which hours before had been the centre of warmth and good feeling with its large gilded mirror over the arched stone fireplace and even the big Impressionist paintings in muted hues of blues, yellows and greens hanging on the walls now wore a ghostly air. The rising flames, crackling in the fireplace threw uncanny moving shapes and shadows across the wooden beams and onto the ceiling. Jillian, with her vivid imagination, was sure she could see grotesque heads of vampires and other sinister creatures with fangs flashing before her.
    Aunt Jean tried to reassure her guests: “It could be anything— high blood pressure. It's obvious that John is grossly overweight. The séance had nothing to do with it.”
    Uncle Phil shuddered, passing a trembling hand over his forehead. “What a nightmare!”
    Mr. Crossland was staring grimly at Madame Zelda and thereby drew all eyes in her direction.
    “Oh, this is getting ridiculous! Leave Madame Zelda out of this. She is merely a vessel in our attempts to communicate with 'the other side',” cried Aunt Jean. She rapped on her wine glass for silence, nearly breaking it, then announced, “May I please have your attention— everyone? I would like to thank Madame Zelda for coming, and we pray that our dear friend, John makes a full recovery. I'm sure he will. As we all know, he was already in bad shape, and I guess— well, the events of the evening may have pushed him over the edge, shall we say.”
    Madame Zelda, who had remained eerily quiet as if wrapped in her own thoughts and somehow oblivious of Mr. Mueller's collapse, avoided everyone's gaze as she headed towards the front door. But suddenly she stopped, raised both her hands as if in prayer, looked back over her shoulder and hissed in a throaty voice, “A curse has been unleashed!”
    Uncle Phil's smile vanished, and his look became vague and uneasy. He and Aunt Jean quickly approached Madame Zelda, thanked her for coming and escorted her out to her car.
    “Unbelievable!” cried Mr. Paradis with disgust, looking out the window to make sure his words were out of earshot of Aunt Jean and Uncle Phil. “John is upstairs half unconscious, his wife is heavily sedated and Jean is blaming all this on his obesity, when we all know for a fact it was the witch. I nearly shit my pants in there. And what's this about a curse?”
    “There is no curse!” replied Adam with finality.
    Jillian looked at her father, who was standing rigid in the centre of the room, staring forward— at no one in particular, as if in a trance or deep in thought. His eyes were wide and the pupils had shrunk to pinprick size. He was holding a wine goblet and rocking the clear red liquid inside it back and forth, while his right forefinger lightly tapped against the glass; the clink kept beat with the metronome ticking of the grandfather clock in the vestibule, whose sound drifted into the living-room like the mist into the barn. Jillian had no idea what time it was— around midnight? she asked herself. The night outside was dark and seemed so still.

    *****

    She dreamt of water— crystal-clear water, the colour of indigo. It could have been in Greece, but she had never been there. More likely it was simply a recollection of bits and scraps of photographs in magazines or scenes in movies of azure blue skies and whitewashed villas that shaped her thoughts. She alone was the heroine, standing on high steep rocks, looking out towards the horizon as the waves lapped gently against the rocks on the shoreline, her long flowing white skirt blowing and the warm breezes enveloping her legs. She could hear the