Ghosts are a fascinating subject for all of us. I’ve also
had in interest in thing paranormal; reincarnation, psychic ability, ESP, the
whole shebang. But my real enthusiasm for the supernatural came after I began
writing.
In 1971 I was in the process of getting a divorce when a
friend talked me into going to a Tarot Card reader. I knew nothing about Tarot, but I say “What the heck!” This card
reader proceeded to tell me that I was in the midst of a huge change in my
life, that I was probably getting divorced and that I would soon move a good
distance away. She knew all about my past from the cards and was shockingly
accurate. But that was all that showed in my cards—my past.
She said there was one final card that indicated a man, but she couldn’t tell me anything without
doing another run of cards. That second run showed a man coming into my life.
He was, she said, a Leo, never married, no children, within a couple years of my age and water would play a part in our
meeting.
Well, that December, I got my divorce and moved to Utah. I
got a job at a private club. One night, I was waiting for a group of ladies to
sit down so I could take their order. One of them looked at me and said that I
had lost someone in my immediate family when I was a teen. I said, “Yes, my
father.”
She proceeded to tell me the exact
same story the Tarot card reader
told me, that I would meet a Leo, never married, no children, yada,
yada.
I got to know this woman, and it’s still
hard for me to believe how psychic she was.
But I never met my Leo.
For a while, during my friendship with this psychic, I too
started to know things before they happened, like who would come into the club
that night, and when I would see the guy
I was dating, things like that. One day I couldn’t stop thinking about a fellow
I’d met a year before. Later I learned he died that day in a trucking accident
about the same time I was thinking of him.
And still, to this
day, I don’t know what to believe about the paranormal.
My mother, who was the least superstitious person I know,
told me my dad came to see her one night. She woke up, and he was standing at the foot of the bed. She spoke to him, and he vanished. She didn’t believe in
psychiatry, let alone anything psychic.
Plenty of people have had similar experiences and are
uncertain what to make of them. What about you. Have you had any psychic
adventures? Share them with us here.
Writing my latest story, A
Ride Through Time, for the anthology, The
Good, The Bad, and The Ghostly, was a lot of fun. I loved delving into the
research on ghost hunting and digging up the little details that helped bring
my story alive. I found lists of proper conduct for ghost hunters, what ghost
hunters should take with them, equipment and how
to use them. I gleefully used all of this information that I could in my tale.
Did I have any paranormal experiences while writing and
researching the tale? No, not really, but I’m open to any that might yet
appear. Who knows, maybe the spirit my ghost hunter tried to exorcise will come
see me.
Yipe! I hope not. He was nuts.
Be sure to download the free sample
book of The Good, The Bad, and the
Ghostly here:
Blurb for A Ride Through Time
Ghosts. Murder. Love. P.S.I. Agent
Burke Jameson traveled to Eagle Gulch, Colorado to investigate a report of
ghost activity at a house where a murder had
taken place in 1881. When his vehicle carrying his P.S.I. equipment dies, and a saddled but riderless mare appears, he
mounts up so the horse can take him to
her fallen rider. Instead, he is taken to a whole new life he could never have
anticipated.
Clorinda Halstead believes she’s a
widow. After all, she did shoot her husband, Horace, one violent night in 1881.
He deserved it, the jury concluded. Living with the town marshal and his wife,
all Clori wants is to be left alone. Then
a stranger, Burke James, joins the household,
and nothing is ever the same again.
How did Burke find his way through
time to the year 1881, and who is haunting the lovely but distant Widow
Halstead? Can Burke find the ghost of Eagle Gulch without his P.S.I. equipment?
And how will he ever choose between going home to his own time and a life of
love and happiness with Clorinda?
Excerpt:
Burke’s gaze
cut to the house and that eerie deja vu sensation washed over him
again. Cold wafted around him like icy arms. He shivered.
Likely scared off the mare with his unprecedented howl at the moon. Nothing more.
Didn’t matter anyway.
What counted was doing his job.
He drew in a deep breath and
smelled smoke.
Smoke?
Gray plumes curled up from
the chimney, ghostly pale against the darkening sky. Someone must be inside.
Why hadn’t he noticed the scent right away? And the
faint candlelight behind the lace curtains? Burke prided himself on his powers
of observation. Hadn’t done too well this time.
Whoever was here had likely
come to check the house’s condition and do repairs. They had set a
fire for warmth while they worked. Nothing spooky or dangerous about that. They
must have parked in the back. He shook off the niggle of dread on his spine,
stepped onto the wooden pallet that served as a porch, and raised his fist to
knock.
Plain, unadorned wood.
Where was the plaque
proclaiming the place a historic site? And the vinyl-protected display stand
that related the Halstead story?
Had the historical society
given up maintaining the property? That could explain the house’s poor condition—the peeling paint, the sagging porch roof—but not
the missing deadbolt lock that had been there seventeen years ago. Who would
ignore badly needed repairs, yet replace a perfectly fine door with one that
had never seen a deadbolt?
Whatever was going on here,
he’d get to the bottom of it. In fact, he
couldn’t wait.
If only Gabe would arrive
with the P.S.I. equipment. Burke’s
instincts screamed paranormal, louder than ever. His nose
itched with urgency. He looked at Spook. The Vizsla sniffed among the leaves;
just a normal dog.
Lifting the cuff of his
jacket, he checked his watch. Not an ordinary watch, but a specially fashioned
piece of modern equipment that not only gave the time, date and weather but acted as a recorder as well. It
contained an EDI meter, an Infrared thermal scanner, an EMF detector, and GPS. Right now, the detector showed red,
indicating a disruption in the electronic field. That likely meant a ghost
disrupting the frequency. The scanner also showed the temperature continued to
drop.
So why had Spook's highly
trained instincts gone offline?
Burke pressed the
communication button and texted Gabe. While he waited for a reply, he walked
the grounds searching for an injured man thrown from a horse. He found nothing
and received no reply. Damn.
On his way back to the house
he tried his phone again. Nothing. He would have blamed it on the multitude of
trees that had surrounded the place, but they were gone.
He peered through an old,
distorted glass pane, past the lace curtains. The furniture appeared much the
same—what hadn’t been stolen before the historical society
took possession. No sign of occupants but
they could be in the kitchen or upstairs. Each floor had two rooms, the living
area in the front, kitchen in back, and two bedrooms upstairs.
Flummoxed. Burke felt plain flummoxed.
Hell, where had he come up
with that antiquated word? The house and its atmosphere were getting to him.
He
glanced at the window again. A face—stark, shadowed, creepy as hell—looked
back.
About the Author
Charlene Raddon’s first serious attempt at writing
fiction came in 1980 when a vivid dream drove her to drag out a typewriter and
begin writing. Because of her love of romance novels and the Wild West, her
primary genre is historical romance. Kensington Books originally published five
of her novels. These were later released as eBooks by Tirgearr Publishing.
Currently, they are self-published with
new covers designed by the author.
