Forwarding Address

By Ann Stratton

When you buy a new house, you can expect some things to be left behind. The previous tenant will always leave something of themselves behind, that they missed when they were packing up. You can be sure it’s going to be strange, at least in the first few months.
Finding what’s been forgotten doesn’t mean just cleaning out drawers and closets, but looking into the past and seeing into shadows.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ann Stratton
• Release date: May 2, 2021
• ISBN: 9780463376461

Ann Stratton

Ann Stratton started writing at age thirteen with the usual results. After a long stint in fan fiction, honing her skills, she hopes she has gotten better since then. She lives in Southeastern Arizona, trying to juggle all her varied interests. 

Book preview

Forwarding Address

The Smashwords Edition

Ann Stratton

A Blind Woman Production publication

Copyright © 2021 Ann Stratton

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To give the reader more of a sample the front matter appears at the end.

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My mother said the house I bought was built in the early to mid 50’s or so, part of the post WW2 building boom. It sat in a subdivision full of similar little houses in the ranch style that had gotten much more eclectic and, in one or two cases, eccentric over the years. Mine was one of the more conservative ones. It had been stuccoed some time in the last twenty years or so and painted a modest dirt brown with dark brown trim. The landscaping had gone through every fashion in the intervening years and now consisted of white gravel and one ancient, shedding eucalyptus tree.

Originally, it had been a two bedroom with one bathroom, but a previous owner had added two more bedrooms and another bathroom. He hadn’t done much with the layout, and it was cramped, dark, and confusing. As soon as I could get the money, I would get the whole thing redone. I wanted wide open spaces. I wanted light. I wanted a layout that didn’t require a map and a string to figure out.

In the meantime, I was stuck with it. But it was my house. My very own house! I could spread out how I wanted! I could decorate how—or as best as, considering what I had to work with—I wanted! Oh, how I had plans!

The previous owner had been an elderly woman who’d died of either cancer or natural causes, I was never quite sure which. Whatever the case, it involved a lengthy illness, leaving her bedridden for the last year or so of her life. It’s not really as creepy as you might think, or at least I wasn’t creeped out. It was my house, and as soon as I got it cleaned up and up to my own standard, there wouldn’t be any problem. One of my psychic friends declared it conflict free. The woman apparently died without regrets, or at least none strong enough to leave any residue. Since I’m about as psychic as a rock, that didn’t bother me.

Once the deal was closed and all the inspections and paperwork were taken care of, I had to clean the place out. The previous owner’s friends and family had done a good job of getting her belongings out of there, but you know there’s always some kind of detritus left behind. If I finished cleaning it out myself, then I’d have a better idea of what I needed to do to make the place all mine. Also any repairs that needed to be done. I was kind of cringing about that little