Haunting Helen (Book One in the Love Life Series)

By Anne Seaworthy

Dreamcatchers are ghost pirates who take Dreams from the living and exchange them for breaths, the currency in Ectopia. One Santa Monica group is headed by Captain Jamie Starling. When Jamie meets Helen in a sailing Dream, he makes her a promise and ends up entangled in her life and that of her fiancé. His previous girlfriend also becomes a petite blonde problem...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Anne Seaworthy
• Release date: Aug 20, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311723260

Anne Seaworthy

Anne Seaworthy grew up in a quaint little beachside town called Santa Monica. She has been writing since she was old enough to hold a pencil. When she's not writing, she enjoys passing the time with her cat, Artemis, doing nail art, and baking.

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HAUNTING HELEN

~~~

by

Anne Seaworthy

Published by Hippocampus Press at Smashwords

Copyright 2015 Anne Seaworthy

Cover Design Copyright 2015

by http://coversbykaren.com/

Formatting by coversbykaren.com

Stay in the know about Anne Seaworthy’s latest work

at her website, http://aseaworthyfrigate.wordpress.com/

The characters and events in this book are fictitious, even those referring to actual or well-known entities. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Chapter One

Ready to roll out, Captain? Tony Spumoni asks me.

I grimace when I notice he's wearing that stupid eyepatch he bought at the Ecto-Store for two pints of Dream.

I can't wait to bring home some more kids' nightmares, India says, grabbing my arm.

I let the arm go intangible so her rainbow fingernails pass right through it.

Harry's already at the helm, awaiting orders. He's such a good sailor I wonder why he ever wanted to be a nature photographer. I guess it's all for the best, though - if he hadn't had that dead-end job, he never would have been gored by a rhino and we never would have had this business partnership.

Art is also anxious to get going, and mimes a ship sailing over the clouds.

I adjust the rigging and get us moving. As we float through moist clouds over the beach, I climb up the mast to really feel the wind on my face, pretending I can touch the stars (which I could fly up and do, if I wasn't busy working.) This ship may not have been my first love, but right now she's my only love.

I'm the youngest ghost here, save India, who died of a freak accident involving a roller coaster and a giraffe. When people ask me how I died, sometimes I smile and say it was a broken heart. And that basically sums it up pretty well.

It was the Halloween of my sixth year of college. I'd been dropping hints to Raygin for weeks that it'd be super cool if she'd dress up like a pirate to match my planned costume. I was sure she'd do it - after all, we had been exclusive for several weeks.

I walked into Christopher's dorm room at six in the evening, ready to party with my pirate girl. I was decked out in a homemade costume with a blue waistcoat I'd picked up at the local thrift store, black skinny jeans, boots I'd jacked up with silver laces and skull pendants, and a black captain's hat my grandmother had sewn me when I was a pirate for some childhood Halloween. It still fit, so either it had been big on me before or my brain hadn't grown significantly since the age of ten.

I looked around for a blond head and a big chest - the hallmarks of my girl. Finally I spotted her next to the boombox, chatting with Christopher. He was wearing a ketchup bottle costume he'd clearly bought at the store - the price tag was still hanging off it. She was wearing a mustard costume probably manufactured by the same company. Disgusting. I didn't even like mustard.

I turned away, pretending not to care, but the sight of