Blood Family: Spirit Caller, #6

By Krista D. Ball

Dema decides to go into party planning, while Rachel's mother becomes obsessed with cheese. Get ready for the series finale: A Spirit Caller and a Tall Man are getting hitched.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Krista D. Ball
• Release date: Sep 24, 2016
• ISBN: 9781536558586

Book preview

Spirit Caller Reading Order

Spirits Rising

Dark Whispers

Knight Shift

Mystery Night

Dead Living

Blood Family

Author’s Note to the 2023 Edition

A lot has changed over the past decade since I first wrote this series. In preparing this new edition, I’ve decided not to remove/change concepts or themes or phrases that aged in the past decade, except for in a couple of very minor incidences. I resisted rewriting parts of this book, which is difficult for both a writer and someone who is always trying to evolve. I also did not modernize technology. Nor add 911 service to areas who didn’t have it when I wrote this series.

I did make a couple of small adjustments to format, and fixed a few typos and cleaned up a few very minor dialogue tags that were annoying.

I kept the Canadian spelling, and the Newfoundland accent. I know some people found the uncommon accent difficult to read, but the accent is a part of the story, a part of Newfoundland, and a part of me.

I hope you enjoy!

Chapter 1

Protip: Elope

I walked into the store, gave the clerk a sharp nod of greeting, and headed right for the 1.5L bottles of wine. I resisted the temptation to open said bottle and begin drinking right there in the store. The lack of a screw top was all that stood in my way.

Hey, Rachel! Need any help, m’love? Mandy Butt was a chipper thirty-something who, on most days, I liked. Today was not most days. Today, I want to cut the next person who so much as glanced in my direction.

This was Wednesday. The wedding was on Saturday. What had I been thinking?

New Zealand Malbec, $21.99.

Just getting some wine for the wedding, I said, as I dragged seven bottles of the malbec to the front counter.

I had no idea that a wedding in a close-knit community like the Northern Peninsula meant that everyone actually expected to show up at your wedding! I mean, I didn’t even invite any of Jeremy’s cousins, and he had like ninety.

Brut Sparkling Wine, $18.99.

Ten of those went on the counter.

Mandy Butt grinned. So he’s making an honest woman out of ya?

Something like that, I mumbled. I grabbed another two bottles of the Malbec.

When I left the house this morning, Mom and Dad were fighting over flowers. That’s right: flowers. My father, a retired Mountie who never once bought my mother a bouquet of flowers, was yelling at her for not having ordered enough for the wedding.

Where’s the church service being held?

Chardonnay, $15.99.

I put five on the counter. Then I realized Mom had thrown out all of the booze in the house, including Jeremy’s eighteen-year-old Highland Park that we had to drive to Corner Brook to get. I picked up another three bottles of chardonnay.

I would give a year of my life for someone to conjure up the other to go possess a tree or attack some garbage cans. Anything to get me out of this wedding.

Again, I ask: why didn’t I just elope?

I smiled through gritted teeth, and put a ninth bottle of the malbec on the counter. I’d drink one for supper. No church service. We’re having the ceremony at Iceberg Alley Inn.

She blinked in surprised. Oh.

I added a bottle of Talisker Storm to the counter pile of bottles. Jeremy and Dad could drink that on the deck when Mom wasn’t looking. We wanted a very private wedding for my mother’s sake.

Oh yes. I most certainly went there. I didn’t know who this crazed party-planning perfectionist my mother had turned into, but I decided to blame everything on her. I had to live in this place; she didn’t.

And I had been living with her for the last week, and I was at the point where I was sure no jury would convict me of any crime.

"Ooooooooh, I understand. Mainlanders are like that, aren’t they?"

Yes, they are. We’re just going to forget right now that technically I am a mainlander. They’d accepted me as one of their own without me even having to kiss a cod.

That’s too bad. I was thinking about coming by for the wedding.

I smiled politely as Mandy rang up my purchase.

I still had to get groceries, because Mom went all the way to Corner Brook for the big shopping trip and didn’t get anything I had on my list. Instead, she came back with every single specialty food item at the huge Dominion store.

I don’t know what was up with Mom. Growing up, she helped with so many weddings and they were almost all potlucks. We lived in a few super tiny towns in the Northwest Territories when I was young, and I remember Mom helping the elders with the food for various receptions. I remember sitting in school gyms making tissue roses by the hundreds while Mom tended the soup or made sandwiches.

But since it was my wedding, suddenly we needed a vegetarian option (even though no one was a vegetarian), a gluten-free option (even though no one has IBS or Celiac Disease, or was even paleo), and a salt-free option (okay, this one is probably valid, but just barely).

She wanted the perfect wedding cake, the perfect dress, and the perfect everything. Except flowers. That was Dad.

Did you get all your liquor in Corner Brook?

My polite smile didn’t waver. We’re just having wine.

Mandy blinked. Why ever not? Your mudder’s not Pentecostal, is she? Cause she’s not gonna like the wine being at the wedding. I’m just saying.

Oh, trust me, I already know. Yesterday, I had my third fight with Irene and David O’Toole about how I wanted them to come to my damn wedding and, yes, I’d be serving wine, and no, they didn’t have to drink it, and no, they weren’t sinning by having it drank near them.

And then Manny got mad at me because he said he wouldn’t be allowed to drink at my wedding, either, since his parents would be there. Never mind that he’s not even legally old enough to drink yet.

So, we were now having two receptions. One at the hotel after the ceremony, where we were going to mingle, drink coffee, and smile politely. Then, us drinkers were going to Mrs. Saunders’ old house where I’d be hosting a wine and cheese party.

I’ve come to loathe cheese.

Mom has a thing, I said, waving my hand over the conversation. I pulled out the cash and