Coon Hollow Coven
Tales Book Two
by Marsha A. Moore
Book Blurb:
Eager to be on her own away from home, twenty-year-old Aggie
Anders accepts a relative’s invitation to live in Coon Hollow Coven. Although
she’s a witch from a different coven, what locals say about the Hollow confuses
her. How can witchcraft there live and breathe through souls of the dead?
Aggie’s new residence in this strange southern Indiana world
is a deserted homestead cabin. The property’s carriage house serves as the
coven’s haunted Halloween fundraiser. It’s a great opportunity for her to make
new friends, especially with the coven’s sexy new High Priest Logan.
But living in the homestead also brings Aggie enemies.
Outsiders aren’t welcome. A cantankerous, old neighbor tries to frighten her
off by warning her that the homestead is cursed. Local witches who practice
black magic attempt to use their evil to drive Aggie away and rid their coven
of her unusual powers as a sun witch.
Determined to stay and fit in, Aggie discovers not only that
the cabin is cursed, but she alone is destined to break the curse before
moonrise on Samhain. If she fails, neither the living nor the dead will be
safe.
A note to readers: the
books in the Coon Hollow Coven Tales series are written to be read in any
order. The series is about one community, and its residents may pass in and out
of various books, but each book has its own unique and special story to be
told.
About the Coon Hollow
Coven Tales Series:
The series is about a coven of witches in a fictitious
southern Indiana community, south of Bloomington, the neck of the woods where I
spent my favorite childhood years surrounded by the love of a big family. The
books are rich with a warm Hoosier down-home feel. There are interesting
interactions between coven members and locals from the nearby small town of
Bentbone. If magic wasn’t enough of a difference between the two groups, the
coven folk adhere to the 1930s lifestyle that existed when the coven formed.
Book One
Excerpt from Chapter
One: The Homestead
A shove of my shoulder pried the rusty hinges on the heavy
log cabin door loose. I flung my blond braid to my back and peered inside.
Beings and critters, alive and furry as well as undead and translucent, flew,
crawled, or slithered across dark recesses of the hallway, sitting room, and
stairwell.
“You weren’t kidding. This place is haunted.” I shuddered
and looked over my shoulder at Cerise. She looked perky as always with her dark
bobbed hair and lively brown eyes beneath horn-rimmed eyeglasses. “Were those
things relations or varmints?” I took a cautious step over the threshold to
escape the blustery weather and unbuttoned my corduroy jacket.
“Oh, both, Aggie. Ghosts of witch kin and their talking
animal familiars,” she said and moved past me to lift sheets off the sitting
room furniture.
I raised a brow, curious about what talking familiars were
but was too afraid to ask. She didn’t seem to think they were bad, and I needed
a place to stay.
Cerise dropped the sheets in a pile and wiped her dusty
hands on her skirt. “Those sorts of ghosts are in all the homes here in Coon
Hollow Coven. Maybe some animal spirits, too, from the surrounding woods. This
property has at least fifty acres of forest. The ghosts are harmless, part of
the family. At least no neighbors have complained, that I’ve heard.”
Eyeing corners of the parlor and the length of the hall, I
wondered if I could ever get used to living with ghosts of people who’d lived
here before. In New Wish, Indiana, where I’d spent my entire twenty years, we
only had an occasional ghost. Usually lost souls who, for some reason, hadn’t
found their peace before death took them. Most times, those folks had been
tormented by darkness and experimented with black magic while they’d lived. Or
so Mom told me, but I always thought that was just her way of keeping me in
line.
I pushed those thoughts out of my head. I wanted a place of
my own more than anything else, and not in the tiny town of New Wish where
everyone knew me…or thought they did. They all said I was the spitting image of
my Aunt Faye, with the same light blond straight hair, deep blue eyes, dark
brows, and quiet personality. Everyone thought I’d grow up to be like her with
a houseful of kids, seven or more. Fact was, they didn’t know me. I wasn’t sure
I even knew myself. There was so much I wanted to learn and do that wouldn’t
happen if I stayed at my parents’ home.
Cerise struggled to open the stuck window. “Aggie, can you
help me here? Some fresh air might tempt a few spirits outside. This place has
been vacant since my mother passed in 2009. We might find just about anything
in here after five years.”
Are you brave enough
to visit Coon Hollow Coven’s haunted carriage house?
Guest Blog by Marsha
A. Moore
Coon Hollow is the setting for Witch’s Cursed Cabin, the
second of my series, Coon Hollow Coven Tales, and there
are a lot of strange happenings going on down in the Hollow as Samhain
approaches.
The Hollow is a fictitious small valley in southern Indiana,
south of Bloomington. Somewhere in Brown County near Nashville and Bean
Blossom, if you’re from around those parts. It’s Hoosier hill-country at its
finest.
The coven was founded on strict rules of adherence to
lifestyle and customs that existed at the time of the coven’s conception, in
the mid-1930s. The rationale: to keep the transmission of witchcraft from one
generation to the next as pure as possible. Members dress in styles of that
period and drive long sleek Packards, Studebakers, and Nashes.
Several times during the year, the coven puts on magical
events open to the public as charity fundraisers for their schools and
eldercare. Witch’s Cursed Cabin opens with the coven preparing for their
annual Halloween haunted carriage house.
Here’s an excerpt of the night when the attraction is open
only to coven members. Aggie Anders has just moved to the coven and is joining
Cerise’s family at the event.
*~*~*
Dusk was changing to night, the gloaming time as I called
it, with the sky ribboned in bands of blue-grays and inky purples. As we
ascended the small hill that separated the two cabins, I pulled my hood over my
head.
On the other side, a group of black forms mingled outside,
perhaps fifty, but the dim light made counting difficult. I glanced down at my
jeans, happy the blue color wasn’t too noticeable. A chilling scream that
seemed to come from the cabin’s roof made me gawk, wide-eyed.
A hush spread over the crowd, and hoods turned upward toward
the tall gable above the front door. Another scream pierced the air, this one
more like the chilling, long wail of a banshee, which I knew signaled
approaching death. And another shriek, as two dark shapes emerged from behind
the chimney. One began the dreadful cry once again, while the other leered at
those on the ground.
Little Bud tugged on his dad’s arm and whimpered.
“What is this I see?” A deep male voice growled down at us.
“Intruders! You’ve broken the peaceful rest of the carriage house spirits.” He
gave a guttural laugh, then shinnied down a trellis at one end of the small
porch. From there, he rubbed his hands together while shuffling side to side as
he scanned the crowd. His ragged cape hung in shreds around his hunched shape,
and his death-white face reflected what little light the twilight offered.
“Since you’ve awakened the spirits, why don’t you come in and pay them a
friendly visit? I’m sure they’ll be glad to welcome you.” With a menacing
laugh, he turned and opened the door. “We have guests of the best
kind—willing.”
A chorus of howls and yelps responded from inside, and the
banshee on the roof gave a higher pitched cry.
A small girl, no more than four years old, begged for her
father to carry her.
The ragged spirit pointed to a sign posted high on the porch
support post. “Heed this sign well before you go inside.” It warned pregnant
women and people with heart conditions to not enter. With the wave of his arm,
he spun on his heel, and the crowd moved toward the entrance.
“Looks like this year’s show will be good. Every year they try
to top the last,” Cerise said and pulled me behind her, while Toby herded their
boys.
Inside, ghouls lurched near, guiding us up the front
staircase. Real enchanted spiders dropped onto our faces, bringing plenty of
squeals and some momentary lost footing on steps. While clinging to the
railings to keep my balance, oozy slime gushed between my fingers. Faced with
the safe scares, screams that escaped my lips immediately turned to giggles.
Live rats ran the length of the upper hall, scampering
across our feet. I was glad for my stiff-toed boots, but many of the ladies
wearing dress pumps jumped a couple feet. One woman landed against me, and we
both fell against the wall where arms extending from paintings held us captive
until we pleaded loud enough for release.
The wall hazards kept people close to the middle, regardless
of the rats. At the doorway to the first bedroom, the floorboards gave way.
Five or more in the line ahead dropped down a black hole, their screams
reverberating after them. Bats flew up the open shoot and corralled us into the
bedroom and the outstretched arms of a red-eyed goblin. His touch sent a sudden
disorienting delirium through me, and I fumbled behind Cerise through a
connecting hall that led into the next bedroom.
*~*~*
What happens to Aggie?
You’ll only know if you’re brave enough to enter the coven’s haunted carriage
house!
Flash Fiction by
Marsha A Moore
Hello! I’m Marsha A. Moore and it’s great to be here and
share some Samhain fun! I’d like to share with you one of my very popular
mini-stories from my collection of fantasy flash fiction Tea Leaf Tales.
Tea Leaf Tales: The
Necessary Practice Halloween Growl
“Oh, come on,
Grindor,” I pleaded for the third time.
“Not until Halloween,” he replied with a terse snap, his
face stoic, his body frozen.
“Just one pre-Halloween scare.” I climbed beside him and
peeked over the fence.
“There’s a teenage boy walking this way toward your gate
who’d make a great practice target.”
“Nope,” he said, trying unsuccessfully to knock me off
balance with his left wing.
“It’ll feel good to do just one little growl.”
A whiz of loud pops sailed inches above my head, and I
jumped behind my griffin guardian who spread his protective wings wide.
The teen burst through the open gate, gun in hand, and
Grindor let out a horrific roar, so loud that my teeth rattled.
From behind, I winked at the boy with the bb gun, my
five-dollar bill showing in his jeans pocket.
Tea Leaf Tales is a series of original ten-sentence short
stories by Marsha A. Moore, relating to photos/scenes that resonate with her.
Visit Marsha’s website
www.MarshaAMoore.com to read more archived episodes of the Mercantile of Tea Leaf Tales and watch
her blog for new episodes.
About the Author:
Marsha A. Moore loves to write fantasy and paranormal
romance. Much of her life feeds the creative flow she uses to weave highly
imaginative tales.
The magic of art and nature spark life into her writing, as
well as other pursuits of watercolor painting and drawing. She’s been a yoga
enthusiast for over a decade and is a registered yoga teacher. Her practice
helps weave the mystical into her writing. After a move from Toledo to Tampa in
2008, she’s happily transformed into a Floridian, in love with the outdoors
where she’s always on the lookout for portals to other worlds. Marsha is crazy
about cycling. She lives with her husband on a large saltwater lagoon, where
taking her kayak out is a real treat. She never has enough days spent at the
beach, usually scribbling away at stories with toes wiggling in the sand. Every
day at the beach is magical!
Website: http://MarshaAMoore.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/MarshaAMoore
Google +: http://google.com/+MarshaAMoore
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/marshaamoore/
Amazon author page: www.amazon.com/author/marshaamoore
Goodreads author page
http://www.goodreads.com/marshaamoore
No comments:
Post a Comment