Strength of Spirit

By Amanda Faith

My name was Velvet Moon. Guess it still is. I never had an interesting life. It was ok, just not interesting.
Now my death is another story.
Momma and I had no idea the day Wren Easton came into our shop would change our lives so much, or that he would involve us in his job with the government.
Did I mention he was like a Ghostbuster 007? Interesting job.
Solving my murder, protecting my mother, and stopping evil from taking over the world. Easy, right? In a world that is new, as a ghost I must succeed.
Why not? I have nothing better to do.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Amanda Faith
• Release date: Jun 16, 2016
• ISBN: 9781530065318

Amanda Faith

Award-winning author Amanda Faith may have been raised in Dayton, but her heart and home is in the South. With a lifelong love of teaching and writing, she had plenty of encouragement from teachers and friends along the way. Loving a good puzzle has always been a fascination, and writing gives her the outlet to put all the pieces together. Being adventurous and loving to try new things, it wasn’t long before her characters found themselves in unusual situations. She loves to put people from two different worlds into new situations and to see how they interact, taking them on journeys they would never have normally experienced. Award-winning author Amanda Faith may have been raised in Dayton, but her heart and home is in the South. With a lifelong love of teaching and writing, she had plenty of encouragement from teachers and friends along the way. Loving a good puzzle has always been a fascination, and writing gives her the outlet to put all the pieces together. Being adventurous and loving to try new things, it wasn’t long before her characters found themselves in unusual situations. She loves to put people from two different worlds into new situations and to see how they interact, taking them on journeys they would never have normally experienced. Her current adventure working as a high school English professor turned Media Specialist, writing, and doing paranormal investigations doesn’t slow her down from having a great time with a plethora of hobbies. Her published credits include short stories, poetry, several journal articles, her doctoral dissertation, and her award-winning book Strength of Spirit. She is a staff writer for The Daily Dragon at Dragon Con. She currently has six degrees, so there is a major passion for learning. Who knows? There may be more down the road. Check out her website at www.amandafaith.net.

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Strength of Spirit

Copyright 2016 Amanda Faith

Published by Amanda Faith at Celtic Lass Publishing

License Notes

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Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

About Amanda Faith

Connect with Amanda Faith

Prologue

I died on April 1, and I still don’t get the joke.

Momma told me I have a strong spirit. Somehow, I don’t think she realized how strong. I’m still here with a whole mess of unresolved business to finish. I suffered an ‘accidental mishap.’ I ‘accidentally’ found myself in the wrong place at the wrong time. I ‘accidentally’ discovered information I wasn’t supposed to. I ‘accidentally’ ignored what the tarot cards told me. It doesn’t matter; the results stay the same. I’m dead and can’t cross over until this gets resolved. Figures. My day didn’t start out great, and it’s not getting any better.

Momma and I always shared this strange connection. I know...knew...when something upset or hurt her. She knows...knew...when something was wrong with me. We’ve been each other’s support for as long as I can remember. The two of us against the world. No Dad. He probably didn’t even know...ok, knew... I was alive.

This dead thing is really screwing up my language capabilities.

The cops didn’t believe Mamma when she called my accident, murder. They think she’s just grieving. Never mind the fact she’s a psychic. Forget the point that she has helped them solve a few cases. So what if she has an unconventional job as a medium. The cops think my death was an accident.

Like I meant to shoot myself in the back of the head.

Cool trick.

But, I am getting ahead of myself. Let me bring you up to speed.

Chapter One

My name was Velvet Moon. Autumn was my favorite time of year. Falling leaves, crisp, cool air and having the brats next door back in school made autumn my favorite time of the year. Imagine them screaming at each other all the time. Trying to think while all hell breaks loose isn’t easy, and it certainly isn’t fun. Still, living in Little Five Points had its advantages. The street signs warned visitors not to be there after dark due to the crime rate. I found it funny, especially since it wasn’t true. Having a select clientele came as another perk of living there.

It always amazes me how people will deny spirits exist. They don’t believe in the supernatural, yet they show up here for a reading or psychic work or herbs or spells or...well, you get the idea. In my line of work, one tended to expect that. The whole thing was hilarious. These people paid a hefty price for my services. Yep, I’m that good. I know how to keep my mouth shut, too.

I come from a long line of witches. It seems this trait carries down through the females in our family. The men have some abilities, but not as strong as the women. Guess the goddess is strong in us. It seemed only natural then, for Momma to open a shop to sell our wares. We did pretty well for ourselves. The shop has been officially open for about twenty years. Before that, we did the business out of the house since we didn’t need another round of the Salem witch trials. For decades, people knew about us but never openly acknowledged anything. We conduct most of our business at night. Heaven forbid if the neighbors saw you.

My momma, Nia, is a woman not to be reckoned with. Petite and quiet, she can become a gale force when need be. Her black hair contrasted with my auburn hair, but you could definitely recognize the resemblance in our faces. I was taller than momma, which wasn’t saying a lot. I tended to have a lot more fire about me than momma. Although I didn’t fly off the handle easily, if provoked I could prove hazardous to your health.

Momma and I both had green eyes, a fact I loved. They tended to glow when a situation excited us. We shared a lot in common and loved being together. Since I was in no hurry to move out, our arrangement suited us fine. We worked together, lived together, and we did magic together. Life was pretty good.

Watching momma work, especially when she did tarot readings, thrilled me. I loved the care she took prepping the room for the client before she dimmed the lights. A single candle on the table illuminated just enough for the reading, but not so much as to disturb the ambience. As she placed the cards, calmness befell her face as if someone...something guided which cards she laid out.

Lieutenant Samuel Dickens, our local cop and friend, even had a few readings when cases were in spin mode and getting nowhere fast. No one made fun of that fact. He solved cases with momma’s help, which tended to be the bottom line. Her readings were almost always correct and made her somewhat famous.

I learned from the best.

Momma always knew my mood or how my day went. We’re connected like that. I was so used to it I never paid it any mind. As I grew older, I learned how to read her, as well. It felt, at times, we had whole conversations without saying a word.

That’s how come I understood momma’s loneliness.

When I was younger, I would ask about my father.

I remember growing up different. The close friends I had at school didn’t care about my heritage. Some kids teased me about the fact I had no father around. I heard all kinds of things from she came from a toad to a ghost raped her mother since she couldn’t keep a man. Although I tried to ignore it all, deep down their words hurt. I wanted a dad. I wanted to be normal. Momma knew I hurt and she did her best to make it all better.

Honey, does it really matter?

I would just stare at her. It mattered. How could it not? Other kids had fathers. Why didn’t I? Despite my need to know, I could never get more out of her than that.

He never came around, never called, never sent me a letter—nothing. It was as if he existed only long enough to create me.

Momma never really dated, not seriously anyway. I didn’t understand, then. Somehow, in the long run, it didn’t make a difference. I knew I was loved, probably more than some of the other kids who had both parents.

Twenty-one years