Someone Else's Fairytale: Happily Ever Hereafter, #1

By Cassandra Moore

A haunted English manor. A handsome prince of industry. For Hanna Sparrow, her new position is like stepping into someone else's fairytale. If she can banish the specters of the past, she might win the prince herself.

 

Hanna Sparrow needs a job. Her nanny gig has not just ended but exploded, and it has taken her professional reputation down with it. One creep of a former boss plus one denied kiss equals no references and no hopes to get off her friend's couch anytime soon.

 

Gregory Pierce needs to hire a governess. Not just any governess, however. One willing to take an unusual position without judgement or too many questions asked up front. The billionaire CEO is willing to pay a princess's ransom for the right person to take care of a child who doesn't exist.

 

They need each other, but as they fall into each other's arms, the past rises to tear them apart. For there are no children living in historic Greenhill Hall. Only secrets, shadows, and the spirits of those who refuse to go quietly into the hereafter.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cassandra Moore
• Release date: Apr 25, 2019
• ISBN: 9798201280192

Book preview

1

What You Wish For

Hanna Sparrow had always daydreamed of a passionate kiss in a romantic locale, just like in the fairytales. The Eiffel Tower perhaps, or a gondola slipping over the canals in Venice. Or the French Riviera, on a moonlight-soaked beach in Saint-Tropez, with the rhythmic sound of waves competing with the sound of her heartbeat in her ears and the taste of gourmet food lingering on her partner’s lips. A night like tonight, a perfect, clear evening illuminated by a thousand stars…

In her fantasies, the man had not been her employer. Neither had he left a wife and two children waiting in a hotel up the beach. Maybe she should have specified what she expected more clearly while dreaming of this night, because the agents of destiny couldn’t be trusted to manage on their own.

She shoved Steven away from her. What the hell are you doing? Have you lost your mind?

Steven Dawson looked back at her with the smirk she’d seen on his lips in the past, when he’d come home from the office after he sealed a particularly juicy deal. Her skin crawled as he spoke. We both know you’ve wanted me to do that for months.

"That answers the question. You have lost your mind." She took a step back, the sand under her bare feet an unpleasant reminder of her shoeless and vulnerable state.

Too few clothes. Too much skin on display. She’d wanted a moonlight walk on the beach as Steven’s wife spent time with her children, just a few quiet minutes for Hanna to gather her thoughts after a long day herding her charges around. Nannies didn’t get much rest on vacations, and she would take her calm moments where she could steal them. A modest one-piece swimsuit with a flowery waist wrap had seemed appropriate when she left the resort. Now, she wondered if a full suit of armor would cover her enough.

Steven stepped forward to match her retreat. You don’t have to hide it, Hanna. There’s nothing to be ashamed of. We’re both adults. Both allowed to have our desires.

There’s nothing to hide. I have no desire for you. In fact, at this moment, I have less desire for you than I did when I woke up this morning. It was zero, then. We’re in the negatives now. Negative desire. Another step back.

That’s not true.

You have a wife. Hanna stabbed a finger towards the hotel in the distance. "She’s back there tucking your children into bed. They all deserve better than this. So do I. This is inappropriate and gross. If you think I’m going to keep this from her–"

Amusement flickered across his doughy, unattractive face. Before he’d kissed her, she’d thought him handsome enough, if a partner had affection to sweeten his features from plain to beloved. Now, Hanna didn’t know if she’d seen an uglier man.

I’d be careful what you say to anyone, Miss Sparrow, he said. You’re just the hired help. Who do you suppose people will believe?

She didn’t respond. She just scowled and shoved past him.

Or tried to. His arm shot out to block her path, one hand curled over her shoulder. A jealous, horny nanny swept away by a head full of romantic thoughts about a vacation in Saint-Tropez. Her rich boss, a family man who loves his faithful wife. Why does that fake woman with plastic tits and stretch marks deserve him? Why doesn’t the pretty, younger woman with the hot, tight body deserve him? They’re alone on the beach, she just can’t help herself…

His hand tugged at the strap on her swimsuit. She swatted it away. You’re disgusting. I hope Julia cleans you out in the divorce.

This time, he didn’t stop her as she stomped by him. His laughter followed in her wake. Do you think that’s how this will go? Aside from the prenup, do you really think that’s what will happen? You stupid bitch.

His words turned into a sour soup in the pit of her gut, but anger carried her forward. I can’t just sit on this. All these days in paradise, trying to look Julia in the eye, trying not to see the look on Steven’s face when we go swimming with the kids, wondering if he’ll be in the hotel room when I get out of the shower…

Whatever happened, she knew she would never look at her old daydream the same way again. Julia might divorce Steve, he might find himself disgraced, a shark might leap out of the sea and bite off his stupid, smirking head, but Hanna’s romantic daydream would be little more than chum in the water from tonight on.

She liked to think her righteous indignation gave her a powerful, confident bearing as she stormed up the beach, because otherwise she would feel like a violated, scared girl fleeing for the safety of the resort. That indignation certainly enhanced her coordination, since she worked the electronic lock on the hotel room and opened the door with a graceful push. Julia? I need to talk to you. I’m so sorry to say this, but– Julia?

Steven’s wife stood in the middle of the suite’s living area, phone cupped in her hands. She glanced up as Hanna breezed in. What have you done?

Only then did Hanna catch sight of Julia’s phone screen. The header at the top of the message read Steve. Hanna’s hopes sank. Always take control of the narrative before the other side can, Steve liked to say. Hanna had run straight to Julia to do the same in person, but at the speed of text messages, Steven had gotten there first.

He kissed me. I’m sorry. I was just out on the beach, and I thought he’d followed me to ask me to watch the kids. I forgot my phone back here, and I thought he’d– Julia, I’m sorry. The words tumbled out of Hana’s mouth in a flood of embarrassment and desperation. Why am I apologizing? I didn’t do anything wrong.

But she couldn’t seem to stop it. I’m sorry. I would never have touched him. He surprised me, then he said awful things to me. I came right here to tell you.

For a heartbeat, Julia looked tired. Tired, and afraid, and trapped, resigned to the fate that had fallen onto her shoulders. Hanna’s throat squeezed closed as she wondered if this was the first time Julia had heard those words, or if they could ever be the last.

Steven would never do that, she said, voice toneless and flat. He isn’t that way.

Julia! You have to believe me.

Julia’s laugh could have etched glass with the acid that dripped from it. I don’t have to do anything, she said, words they both knew for a lie. You need to pack your things. You can’t stay here. Consider your employment terminated.

The plane back isn’t for days yet. Can I have another room to stay in?

If you can book one. Julia turned away, towards the table where she had tossed her purse. I’ll write you a check for your final pay. I don’t care what you do after that. Get another room. Change your flight and go back to the States. It goes without saying that you can’t continue to live in our home. I’ll have your things packed up. You can get them yourself, or we can ship them to a place you designate.

But that’s my residence. I don’t have anywhere else to go. Is it even legal to evict me like this? Not that she wanted to return, but homelessness didn’t appeal, either.

Steven’s voice sounded from the door behind her. It isn’t legal to try to blackmail your boss with lies about an affair, either. It would probably be best for you just to leave quietly, before we have to involve the police.

Hanna’s skin felt tight. A blush burned over her face as shame and rage flushed through her. You lying bastard. How dare you.

Really, Hanna, I’m embarrassed for you. Steven walked around her to join his wife. His shoulder brushed Hanna’s on the way by, and she flinched. Your references were so good. I really thought you had more integrity than this. Yes. I’m embarrassed for you. Get out of our suite. Don’t you think you’ve caused my wife enough pain? Make no mistake, I’ll be calling the agency we hired you through. They need to know what kind of woman you are.

Outrage stole whatever words Hanna might have spoken on her behalf. She spun on her heel to duck into her room before the urge to slap the priggish, condescending smile off Steven’s face overcame her. Never in her life had she changed clothes faster or shoved her belongings into a bag with more speed.

Only Julia remained in the living room when Hanna carted her bags out. Silently, the other woman held out an envelope. Hanna took it and tried once more. Julia, you have to know I wouldn’t–

Julia shook her head. What’s done is done. For what it’s worth… Her words trailed off, and whatever she’d intended to say died before it could escape her lips.

What’s done is done. Quite a number of things fell into that category now. Done. Finished. Not the things that should have ended, but once again, whatever agents of destiny laid out the steps before her couldn’t handle the responsibility of their position. She adjusted the straps of her bags, took hold of the handle of her rolling suitcase, and walked out the door with her head low.

As she waited for a taxi outside the resort, she checked the contents of the envelope. She found her final paycheck, along with a few high-denomination bills. A scrap of paper clipped to them read, This should be enough to cover the fees for changing your flight. I’m sorry.

Hanna glanced back towards the hotel. The Dawsons’ room was on the other side, facing the water instead of the street, but she could imagine Julia behind the walls, waiting for a bottle of wine to help drown the bitter taste of the night. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry, too.

I really appreciate you rescuing me, Athena, and letting me crash on your couch. I know it’s inconvenient.

Inconvenient because she’d had to unearth the couch from beneath a pile of research volumes and style manuals, then find another place in the tiny cottage to stack them. Athena Hibou lived in a guest house on her own property, and every time Hanna visited, she discovered her friend had piled in more books, more odd knick-knacks, and sometimes, more computer equipment. That left less and less room for human backsides to settle on.

Athena waved a hand without looking up from her book. They tell me this is what friends are for, Hanna. I could hardly leave you stranded in New York and homeless. You were desperate, especially if you called me. By the time anyone gets to my number, they have exhausted all other options.

Hanna looked down at her hands, stung by the truth in those words and ashamed to agree with them. She’d called nine other people before she’d stared with intent at Athena’s number on the screen. Hanna had rung contacts at the nanny agency first, only to receive icy, pointed replies that told her Steven Dawson had already made good on his threat.

In between the third and fourth pleas for help, an inbound call had interrupted her search for a place to stay. The agency director reached out to fire Hanna personally, and to inform her that the company would not offer her positive references in the future. Six years of work history flushed down the drain.

After she’d exhausted all her agency contacts, Hanna had tried people she’d once thought of as friends. Every one of them had an excuse for why they couldn’t help out. Several were valid. Others were weak, anemic, the kind of excuses that showed her how badly she’d misread those friendships.

In the end, out of options and low on the ability to cope, Hanna had called Athena. Not just texted, as the woman preferred, but hit the green phone icon on the screen to put in an honest-to-mercy voice call. Athena picked up, listened to Hanna cry, then said, I will be there in several hours. You can stay with me until you sort yourself out.

Acquaintances avoided Athena for her eccentricities, her oddness, and her occasional yet severe lack of tact. Few realized Athena avoided them in return for their plebeian attitudes and their small, closed minds, which bored her to tears. Fewer still understood that weird waters ran deep. For all her strangeness, one couldn’t find a truer friend than Athena Hibou.

Maybe I should have called you first, ‘Thena, Hanna said softly.

Athena snorted. Why? We all know I am an introvert with a dubious outlook on guests. My available facilities for friends are not stellar. If you could have found more comfortable accommodations, more power to you.

Hanna chuckled. How about accommodations for paying customers?

Slightly better, if you are one who enjoys that sort of thing. Athena’s phone chimed. She checked the screen. And in need of cleaning. Last night’s lodgers have checked out. Care to help reset the place?

What happened to the cleaning guy you had? Hanna asked as she stood up.

Athena’s nose wrinkled. He had an extreme courage malfunction. I will need to find another. Until I can, the cleaning is down to me. There is a milk crate in the laundry room with the supplies we will need. Sponges, cleaning products, gloves, charms against evil… Grab it, won’t you?

Wait. Charms against evil?

Technically they are ‘charms against malicious intent, uncanny energies, and motivated spiritual energies’, but that takes far too long to say. Athena pulled her long hair, black with blue-green and purple tips, back into a sloppy bun.

Glad we cleared that up, Hanna said, not sure about how glad she was, and fetched the plastic crate.

She’d never seen the main house on Athena’s property. During the housing crash, Athena had snatched up a large and notorious house in the woods of Vermont, then turned the investment into a strange source of near-passive income. While most of Athena’s money came from freelance writing gigs of both normal and questionable repute, her side hustle brought in plenty of cash.

Renters flocked from all over the world to book stays in a real haunted house. They came for the fiery autumn leaves during the day and remained awake all night for the unexplainable sounds and hazy figures in the shadows. Athena’s rental policies only stoked the mystique: Landlord cannot answer service calls between sundown and sunrise, If electricity fails, try generator. If generator fails, try prayer, and a basket labeled, Soiled bed linen here.

Small charms and stick constructions hung from the trees between the guest house and the main house. Throughout the half-mile walk, Hanna lost count of how many oddities caught the midday light or spun on their rough twine tethers. A gentle breeze whispered through the maples, birches, and tamaracks, the rustle of leaves and needles like words breathed at the edge of her hearing.

Goosebumps rippled over her forearms. Is the main house really haunted? she asked.

That may be the wrong question to ask, Athena answered in a philosophical tone. To answer that question, we would need to clarify it. A better question might be, ‘What is haunted?’

You know, ‘Is it haunted?’ really doesn’t seem like it would be difficult to answer. It’s ‘yes’ or ‘no’, and ‘no’ includes the subset of ‘people are so gullible’.

Very well. Is the main house haunted by what?

Hanna remembered why she didn’t call Athena first. Ghosts.

What are ghosts?

The spirits of dead people?

Spirits? Or memories? Athena glanced over, a small smile curling up the edges of her lips. I promise you, I am not attempting to be difficult on purpose. What I am attempting to do is to show you that ‘haunting’ and ‘ghost’ are not catch-all terms. There are different flavors, if you will, even outside of culturally specific ghosts. Each flavor indicates very different conditions.

For every time Hanna wanted to strangle her friend for her inability to provide simple, straightforward answers, three more times when Hanna found herself fascinated presented themselves. Memories can haunt places?

"They surely haunt enough people, but that’s rather different. In my experience, places do have memories. The energies that pervade buildings, or land, remember the forms they once took. Consider an old house, one inhabited by the same people for decades. The people who lived within had certain routines. Every evening, the wife would go to the kitchen to wash dishes, scrub the stove, and look out the window at the woods beyond."

All right.

She wears that path in the energies every night for fifty years. Like acid etching patterns in glass. Then one day, she dies in her sleep. Her son inherits her home and chooses to live in it, because housing prices are nonsense. Athena rolled her eyes. One night, he steps into the kitchen and sees his mother at the sink. Her hands move, washing dishes that are no longer there, as she did a thousand times before. Her spirit is not there. She died with a clean conscience and felt no need to linger. Her home, however, remembers. An apparition of her now haunts the place, harmless and even fond.

That’s kind of beautiful, Hanna said. Does the main house have an apparition like that?

Several. The house has stood a long time. It has seen many people and events worth remembering.

Hanna smiled. She’s poetic when she wants to be. Is that all it’s haunted by?

No. If all it had was an infestation of apparitions, I would not need these. Athena gestured at the charms hanging from the boughs around them. Apparitions have no intent. They are visions programmed by the past, and they do not deviate from their coding. That woman in the kitchen does dishes forever, stares into the woods until the energies of the place are so disrupted that the memory is forgotten. She does not know her son is there. She does not know she had a son at all. She is what she is, neither more nor less. What you likely consider ‘ghosts’ are different.

They know you’re there, and know who they are? Or were?

Anecdotally, this differs for each individual haunt. Some are little better than the apparitions. They are stuck at a particular point in their lives, and they relive it, over and over again. Unlike apparitions, you can feel them. Cold air in their wake. A shiver when they pass through you. They will probably not even notice you in their obsession to complete the task that compels them.

But others do?

Yes. Some might notice you and mistake you for people they have known. Others will recognize you for an intruder, though they may not either know or recall your true identity. It seems difficult for the dead to retain information about the living. Perhaps because the world has moved on, and they remain stubbornly trapped in a time that exists only for them now. Not unlike half of Washington, DC.

Hanna choked on her spit.

Athena continued while Hanna coughed. Concept seems important to ghosts. They might not remember, say, the mother who lives in their home is called Mary and likes the color green. They will recognize her as The Mother. So if they remember their own mothers fondly, they may treat Mary well.

And if they didn’t like their mother, Mary isn’t going to have a good time.

Mary is going to sell the house and ponder becoming a nun, yes, Athena said with a nod. Most ghosts are harmless. They cannot hurt you, though the strongest of them can terrify or trick you into hurting yourself. Malicious shits, those. Being dead gives them a bad attitude.

Can’t say as I blame them for that, Hanna said. Now she could see the house through the trees in front of them, painted a rustic green to harmonize with the natural colors around it.

Three floors, she decided, two main ones and a cellar, with dormer windows peeking out from the slope of the roof. A porch ran the full length of the home’s rear side, covered to shelter the comfortable furniture that waited for guests to relax in it. Either Athena or a hired landscaper had laid in bushes and flower patches near the house. A charming place, the perfect, quiet getaway for travelers who wanted a lovely retreat.

Except for the wall of cold around it. The heaviness of the air, thick and difficult to breathe in. Each inhalation provoked a primal response deep within, one that poured adrenaline into her bloodstream. Her hands began to tremble with uncontrollable shivers that grew worse the closer she approached the house. Stranger still, the flesh at the top of her spine burned, as if the ink she’d had tattooed into her skin threatened to catch fire.

Hanna stopped at the edge of the trees. She didn’t realize she’d done so until she noticed Athena ahead of her, staring back with one eyebrow cocked. Are you all right?

Yes, she tried to say, but the word didn’t come out. I’m not sure, was what she said instead.

Ah. Athena reached into the bucket she carried. I always wondered how sensitive you were. Sensitive enough.

"Enough for what? What’s in there?" Hanna stared at her friend.

Athena took a deep breath and let it out through flattened lips. Most ghosts are harmless. There are rare cases, often spirits driven by extreme malice or emotional strength, where the ghost has learned to do more with its environment than frighten those within it. What popular culture might call a poltergeist, or a wraith. A phantom.

Emotional strength. Not a quality Hanna felt she had at that moment. She forced herself to breathe in, breathe out, breathe in again, to release the tension in her shoulders as each breath left her.

Mm. Guilt, often. Fear. Hatred. Love. The big ones. At last, she came out with one of the charms against evil Hanna had made fun of. Put this on.

It surprised Hanna to discover how difficult it was to push her muscles into functioning. So a ghost’s guilty conscience is making me feel like I want to throw up, run away, cry, and curl up fetal, all at once.

No, Hanna. That isn’t a ghost you are feeling. Athena stretched her mouth into a thin-lipped smile. "There are ghosts here. Three who will never notice you. Two who will, and may resent you for your audacity to remain alive. The apparition of an old woman stands at that window there each night to keep watch. You could not feel any of those from here."

It took three tries for Hanna to pull the charm’s shoddy chain over her head. The moment the pendant touched her skin, the miasma of terror dissipated. Her tattoo cooled. Whatever spiritual weight had attempted to flatten her stopped. In its wake, she felt light, hollow, washed too-clean by the torrents of adrenaline.

Then what the hell was I feeling? she asked.

I have no idea what it is, though I suspect ‘the hell’ is not inaccurate, Athena answered. It is warded into the cellar now. Every year, I refresh the protections to keep it there. Very few people can feel it at all, or if they do, they feel only a sense of dread that enhances their ‘haunted house’ experience. You are one of the lucky few.

Lucky, Hanna echoed. Not the word I’d use. And you want us to go in there.

Our friend in the cellar isn’t going to refresh the linens, Athena said wryly, and started toward the house again.

Hanna noticed her friend didn’t pull on a charm. Can’t you feel it?

Naturally.

But you don’t have a charm on.

I prefer to be able to feel where it is.

Athena, have you ever seen it? Not just felt it, but seen it?

Athena didn’t reply. She just stepped onto the porch to open the back door.

2

Someone Else’s Fairytale

H ow do you sleep, knowing that place is on the same property? That the– Our Friend in the Cellar is ten minutes that way? Hanna pointed toward the far wall, which stood between them, the forest, and the oddities that hung out in Athena’s rental.

I worry more about the guests who rent the place, Athena replied, nose still in her book. The greater proportion of my uncanny lodgers remain bound to the house. The rest have not made it past the protections on this house, the main house, and in the woods between them. Drunken dudebros are not deterred by charms against evil.

Hanna winced. The world might be a better place if they were. Why do you live here?

It’s practical to. Athena turned the page. I own it, so I pay no rent on it. It allows me to maintain the rental house if my cleaning crew develops a sudden sensitivity to spiritual entities. And, in a more altruistic vein, to whom would I sell Our Friend in the Cellar? Unless a church would like a remote, wooded location for retreats and Come to Jesus meetings.

Come to Jesus, because he’s the only one who can drive off the nasty thing downstairs?

One of a few, anyway. I’d give Asatru sorts a go at it.

Hanna fell silent, since talking about it reminded her she intended to sleep half a mile away from a haunted house full of frat boys on a break from classes. She’d heard them hooting and daring each other to stay up all night to investigate the haunting, assuring each other they were not afraid of any ghosts. They’d sounded like idiots. And no matter how annoying they sound, I’m glad I checked the locks on the cellar door myself.

Still, she couldn’t stop thinking about the spirits Athena said lingered in the main house. While Hanna hadn’t seen the Woman in the Window, or the Girl in the Corner, she’d fancied she’d felt their presences as she changed the pillowcases on the beds and ensured the milk in the kitchen’s ancient refrigerator had an expiration date in the future, not the past. A chill wind that blew against the back of her arm. The intense sensation that someone, something watched her, but when she looked around, she saw no one there.

Who are they? she asked suddenly.

The Asatru? They are worshippers of–

No. The ghosts in your house. They must have been someone.

Former residents. The Woman in the Window was the wife of a shipowner in the nearby town. He was a man of tremendous and notable mediocrity, as I understand, one who offered her financial security but little else. Athena smirked at her page. The Woman in the Window stood at that window every evening to look for a signal from her paramour, who would wait in the woods. When she saw it, she would go have a more exciting evening than she did at home. My theory is, the apparition lingers because it was a place and an action tinged with great emotion. She charged that spot with her energies as you would charge a balloon by rubbing it against your hair.

So the woman is emotional static electricity raising our hairs.

Approximately.

What about the Girl in the Corner?

An honest-to-goodness ghost. My research says her parents betrothed her to a local boy. When she found out, she stood in the corner and wept. I assume she was not happy about the match.

Have you ever tried to help her move on? Pass into the light, or whatever? Hanna leaned forward.

Athena placed her finger between the pages and closed her book over it. I’ve attempted to communicate with her before. With all of them. It was part of my motivation for buying this property. The real estate agent was very honest about the house’s nature. I wanted to see if I could help them pass on.

Why haven’t you, then?

"Cellar Dweller. Until I can figure out how to deal with it,