Skeleton Trees

By Adelise M Cullens

Cindy was looking to get away, to escape her past. She thought a holiday home in the mountains would be perfect to distract her and maybe get some writing done. But she was wrong.
She discovers that her holiday home is haunted. But her and the ghost share a similar past, a similar secret, a similar shame.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Adelise M Cullens
• Release date: Jul 6, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301476336

Adelise M Cullens

I am an Aussie author. I write freelance for a magazine (articles and restaurant reviews) and also have an ongoing fiction series in a magazine. I love to write full length novels, but also love short fiction. Especially giving away said short fiction for free! I have no set genre that I prefer to write, I love having my fingers in lots of figurative pies! I also have an ongoing competition (with details on my website) where you send me challenges. Say a sentence, an idea, a random thought or question, picture, anything and I will write a short story to go with their challenge, dedicate it to them and self publish it. Just something to interact with my fans!

Book preview

Skeleton Trees

By AM Cullens

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

Smashwords edition published in 2013 by AM Cullens, Killing for Pages.

Copyright © AM Cullens 2013

Part 1

There came a lady, all in white. Out of the mist, on a hill. She cries out for her heart, that she cannot find, though she searches, both morn and night. Surround by black skeleton trees is she, for that lady, that ghost, is me. – Mary White, Bilpin, Australia.

***

My first day in the holiday home was beautiful. The warm sun, the fresh country air, sounds of bellbirds in the distance. But, the second day, as I sat out on the patio with my cuppa, a storm brewed to my east and a chill seemed to set in deep. I pulled my feet up onto the couch I was on, and brought my knees to my chest.

Then the rain came. The type of rain that is not torrential, but constant, the type you know is not going to rain itself out any time soon. The Gum trees, around the apple orchard, bent to the mercy of the wind. Lightning cracked on the horizon, illuminating the sky with white, followed by thunder rumbling in the distance. I held my mug close for warmth as my teabag tag flipped up and into my tea. It floated around on the top, delicately, like a feather on a pond.

I listened to the delightful squeals of Rainbow Lorikeets in a nearby tree, rejoicing in the downpour. I smiled to myself as I pulled out the floating tag. The first time I had smiled, honestly, in months.

The air around me