The Ghosts of Skullhaven

Here's a teaser. This is a spooky (yet fun) middle grade book. I'm including Chapter 1 below for your enjoyment. It is available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble in digital (ebook) form. Enjoy!


CHAPTER 1

It was a day Lilly would never forget.

She could smell the sweet scent of lilac perfume when her mother kissed her goodbye for the last time. She didn’t know it was the smell of lilacs, nor did she realize it was her mother’s last kiss, because Lilly was only four years old. But she would remember both of these things—forever.

Be a good little girl now, Lilly, and don’t give Nana any trouble, her mother had told her. I’ll be right back.

Lilly watched from the railing of the wooden porch as her mother got into the car and headed it down the driveway. While she drove away, the tailpipe puffed out a tiny stream of grey smoke that dissipated quickly in the cool autumn air. After the car had turned the corner and disappeared from sight, Lilly remembered her mother’s last words.

I’ll be right back, she had said. Right back.

But Lilly’s mother didn’t come right back.

She didn’t come back the next day. Or the next. And even though Lilly kept asking where her mother was, no one could tell her, because no one knew what had become of her.

And Lilly wondered what she had done wrong.

When Nana died in her sleep a short time after that, Lilly was left all alone in the world. And since there was no one remaining to watch after her, Lilly was sent to the Sacred Heart Orphanage in Skullhaven.

Not to visit. To live there. With Sister Rosemary and Sister Carmen and a lot of other children she didn’t know. To Lilly, it was very scary and unfamiliar. The other children played and laughed, but Lilly mostly sat by herself, wondering. And crying.

When she had first arrived, Lilly spent her time looking out the big living room window. She would part the delicate lace curtains and watch the cars as they passed by on the highway, wishing one of them would turn into the gravel drive and her mother would be inside it. But she never was.

Lilly never stopped hoping. And wishing. But, after a year had passed, she stopped sitting by the window so often. After two years, she only glanced out it when she walked past. On the rare occasions when she heard the sound of car tires crunching on the gravel drive, her heart still raced. Could it be? But it was never the person she was waiting for. And wishing for.

As time passed, the other children were adopted. One by one, they moved away to start their new lives with their new families. Eventually, there were no children left at the Sacred Heart Orphanage—except Lilly.