Haunting at the Beach

By Sylvia Harvie

Vera found herself in a far-fetched situation when her sons, Ian and Philip, invited her to join them on their fishing holiday near the beach at The Entrance, situated on the Central Coast of New South Wales, Australia.

Cassandra and Vera were close every day of Veras holiday when she would sit on the beach in the shade of a large rock and read her novel. Cassandra sensed that Vera was a clever and intuitive woman who would be open to the spiritual world and had the business knowledge to get the help Cassandra needed, so she asked Vera for help.

Vera and Anthony met at a beachside cafe nearby. Anthonys sister, with the help of friends, organised the meeting between Vera and Anthony.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Jul 19, 2017
• ISBN: 9781543401288

Sylvia Harvie

My first published story was a short story published in a book of short stories, ‘Generation Inspiration’ in 1999, an anthology of stories by twelve new writers about how older Australians inspired the writers to do voluntary work. My first Novel ‘Move Forward’ was the book I was always going to write to help me understand why people continues to assault their loved ones, then, how the victims of domestic violence moved forward from this unacceptable violence. This, my latest book ‘Haunting at the Beach’ was the product of my joining writers from all over the world in the National Novel writing in November in 2013 where the writers were asked to write 50,000 words in 30 days. It was a frantic joyous journey.

Book preview

HAUNTING

AT THE BEACH

marine-1212251_1920.jpg

SYLVIA HARVIE

Poem by T. J. Shepherd: ‘Haunted Beach’

Poem by Michelle Dwane: ‘Who I Am’

Copyright © 2017 by Sylvia Harvie.

Library of Congress Control Number:         2017908592

ISBN:                  Hardcover                        978-1-5434-0130-1

                            Softcover                          978-1-5434-0129-5

                            eBook                               978-1-5434-0128-8

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 07/19/2017

Xlibris

1-800-455-039

www.Xlibris.com.au

761563

I would like to dedicate this book, Haunting at the Beach, to all the people that helped me have it ready to publish and those who helped me along the way, especially my partner, Deane, who was gravely ill during the writing of the story and yet, even though he was sick, kept me laughing for the whole thirty days.

I wrote Haunting at the Beach during the National Novel Writing in November 2013. I would like to thank the National Novel Writing team for all their motivation. They inspired me to complete Haunting at the Beach. What a journey it was!

After 30 November 2013, I kept writing, then I began to edit. There was a real need for that after writing 50,000 words in 30 days. My friends Michelle and Terry became involved by writing a poem each for my book. My cousin Rohan gave me a photograph of himself on a beach with a lovely pink sky, which I used in the book. I superimposed Terry’s poem on to that picture. My daughter Lindy Kirk took the photograph of the beach at The Entrance in New South Wales, Australia, which I painted for the book cover.

Thank you, all. After the completion of the book, Lulu.com sponsored everyone who achieved the 50,000 words in November with a beautiful hardcover free copy of their book.

Unfortunately, my partner, Deane, passed away in 2015 after his long illness. I miss him every day.

I have since moved to the Gold Coast of Queensland. The beach is just down the street from my little home. I have spent my time at the beach, getting Haunting at the Beach ready to share with you.

Happy reading!

Sylvia.

CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

INTRODUCTION

V era found herself in a far-fetched situation when her sons, Ian and Philip, invited her to join them on their fishing holiday near the beach at The Entrance, situated on the Central Coast of New South Wales, Austr alia.

Cassandra and Vera were close every day of Vera’s holiday when she would sit on the beach in the shade of a large rock and read her novel. Cassandra sensed that Vera was a clever and intuitive woman who would be open to the spiritual world and had the business knowledge to get the help Cassandra needed, so she asked Vera for help.

Vera and Anthony met at a beachside café nearby. Anthony’s sister, with the help of friends, organised the meeting between Vera and Anthony.

CHAPTER 1

C assandra’s plight to communicate with people for years had been to no avail. She was frustrated and on the verge of giving up when a new person, a pretty woman of about forty with long black curly hair and startling blue eyes, arrived at the beach a week ago.

She sat close to Cassandra every day, reading, sleeping, and talking on her mobile telephone. Cassandra knew Vera’s name, as she always answers her phone with ‘Vera Harris. How can I help you?’

This morning, though, Cassandra noticed that this morning, Vera was walking about fifty meters away from where Cassandra was. Cassandra was overjoyed to see Vera although she seemed to be walking away. Cassandra summoned her seagull friends to bring Vera closer to her so she could test out her new communication skills.

The seagulls swooped on Vera. She screamed as the seagulls squawked and screeched. They were too close, trying to force her to change course. This did not happen. Vera did not want to change course because her plan was to walk along the beach further up to her favourite café, which was not far from where she had been sitting every day of her holiday. Vera wanted to buy herself a morning coffee and return to the beach later to drink her coffee and to relax and read, sheltered from the sun by a big rock.

A group of schoolchildren saw the birds attacking Vera, and they flapped their arms at the birds, who themselves were scared off by the schoolchildren and flew out over the sea. Vera thanked the children; she then continued her walk up to the promenade to the coffee shop.

Cassandra was disappointed that Vera had not sat down. She felt she would never get the opportunity to try to talk to her now. Her latest attempts using her powers were not working with this lovely, intuitive, sensitive woman.

Cassandra was dead.

She knew it. Cassandra remembered the exact circumstances that led to her death. She was murdered then buried on the beach against a wall, and then the man who murdered her rolled a big rock down from the promenade, which acted as a border between the beach and the promenade over the place where he had buried her.

Cassandra’s dilemma was that she had been trying to communicate with people on the beach for over five years and had yet not found one that could help her. She felt more confident about communicating with the nice woman Vera, who had chosen to sit in front of the rock every morning for the last week to read her book.

Cassandra wanted to ask Vera for help. She was not able to talk before. She felt that maybe she could now. She was desperate to communicate with Vera. All she had been able to do to try to attract her attention so far was by making Vera feel very cold or sometimes by summoning her seagull friends to help her.

There were other dead people helping Cassandra now as well as the seagulls; they were now teaching her how to talk to her chosen contact, although this was the first day she had been ready to test out her new skills.

While Cassandra had lain buried in the sand, she had been composing poetry to keep her mind alert. She wished to pass these verses on to her family. She also wanted her family to know she was dead, especially her wonderful, caring brother Anthony. He had spent so much time and money on investigations, searching for her. Cassandra wanted this all to end, to enable him to move on with his life, to be free to meet a nice woman like Vera and maybe marry and move forward and be happy.

Cassandra’s family needed to know what had happened to her and who did this to her. She also wanted her family to organise a funeral and bury her in their local cemetery so that she could be near them; only then would she let her soul be released so that she could rest in heaven.

The customers were leaving the café. Cassandra noticed some going left and some going right. Although nobody had walked towards her on the beach, she believed Vera would not return to her usual place on the beach today.

Vera was standing in the café, waiting for her coffee, when her friend Paulita rang her on her mobile for a morning chat. Vera sat down at the table to talk to Paulita; she told her friend how she had woken early from a bad dream.

Vera described how her heart had been racing and how it had frightened her. Vera described the dream to Paulita. ‘It is the same dream I have had every night I have been here. I get very cold, then the seagulls attack me, and I wake up just as they catch me.’ Vera concluded, ‘When I woke up, I was so hot there was perspiration trickling down my face. I quickly bolted out of bed and ran down the hall to the bathroom.’

As she was awake, Vera decided to have a cool, refreshing shower and go for a walk to buy a coffee at her favourite café then walk back to the beach to enjoy the sun that had come out again for her well-deserved holiday. She chose to walk along the beach today to the café and let the fresh air and sea spray clear her head from the dream instead of up along the promenade, as she usually did, to her favourite café.

Vera’s plan was to walk up from the beach to the promenade halfway along the beach to enjoy her morning ritual of a latte, plan her day, and read her book on the beach in front of the rock. On the walk up the beach, the seagulls had attacked her, but the boys frightened the birds out to sea. At the door of the café, the birds circled above her head once more. One followed her into the café. Vera’s friend Paulita rang Vera on her mobile just as Vera gave her coffee order, so Vera asked the barista serving her if she wouldn’t mind serving her coffee at the table instead of getting her coffee to go.

Vera sat down and waited for her coffee. While talking to Paulita, she relaxed, and she told her friend that the coffee was delicious. They had fun chatting and laughing. The friends continued to have a great chat; that was until a seagull brought their chat to an abrupt halt.

Vera enlightened her friend Paulita that there was a ‘wicked’ seagull in the café. ‘He is haunting me. He flies at me, he retreats, then flies at me again. Oh no! He came too close that time, I am out of here!’ she exclaimed!’

Paulita replied, ‘See? Even the birds in your life are there to make sure you do not even get to relax and enjoy a coffee.’ She laughed at her friend’s predicament. ‘Hmm… a Stephen King seagull by the sounds of it.’

The girls finished their chat after making plans to have another talk together later in the day. The seagull was still flying at her repeatedly, ‘haunting’ her.

As Vera paid for the coffee then hurried from the café, she ran straight into the arms of a gorgeous man who had witnessed the seagull ‘attack’. Amused by the whole incident, he was smiling at her, this lovely lady who had been trying to drink her coffee and chat with her friend on the phone when the seagull began flying at her.

Vera apologised for running into the man, and he said, ‘Don’t worry. I enjoy a lovely girl running into my arms first thing in the morning. My daily walks are usually uneventful.’

He then offered to take Vera for another coffee to his favourite café, where he had been headed before she ran into him. Going to this other café entailed a short stroll further along the beach. Everything seemed to be picking up for Vera. She was on the arm of a handsome, well-tanned man while soothing her feet in the cool splash of the waves on the shore. Suddenly, she ran for cover as flocks of seagulls swooped at her, emitting loud squawks, which frightened her badly.

Cassandra had become desperate when she saw whom Vera was with, and she sent her seagulls to bring them closer to her so she could test her new communication skills out on them both. Cassandra would not get to talk to them now. She would have to wait.

The man rescued Vera yet again by ripping off his shirt and placing it over her lovely head. She peeked through the shirt and saw the birds flying out to sea, and in front of her was this semi-naked man with a perfect, well-toned, and tanned body, the best she had even seen. This left her gawking and speechless.

Vera’s friend Paulita asked later, ‘Did you ever make it to the other café?’

‘Yes,’ Vera replied.

Paulita’s next question was ‘Did he make slow, passionate love to you on a secluded part of the beach?’

Vera just laughed her ‘evil’ laugh. ‘You will never know!’ she replied.

Vera was chuckling to herself when she walked back along the beach later about how her day had dramatically improved.

The coffee was perfect along with the company. That all ended when she received a disturbing phone call from her son Philip, a cry for help once again. Philip, her youngest son, she explained to the man who had bought her the coffee, was a fine young man who only ever tried to do the right thing.

This day went as usual for him. He was relaxing by the pool when he saw someone who caused him some pain in the past knock on the door of their holiday unit. Philip went to join the young woman, and he invited her into the unit and was shocked when she attacked him with ridiculous threats.

Although hating this turn of events, Vera kindly excused herself. Not wanting to miss another opportunity because of her hectic life, which was fraught with enough problems, she slipped the man her card with her mobile number on it in the hope that he would call her.

Vera was walking back to her unit after waving goodbye to this beautiful man. Passing the rock, she heard the seagulls returning to the beach, and she began to run back to her unit. She thought she could hear someone calling her name, but she did not stop, as the birds had already attacked her twice today already.

Vera dealt with her son and his friend, telling them to go for a walk along the beach and work out their problems by communicating with each other. Once they had left the holiday unit, Vera picked up the latest book she was reading.

Still thinking of her strange morning, her slight, perplexed smile turned into a grin from ear to ear when her mobile phone rang, bringing her back to the present. She did not recognise the phone number.

‘Please let it be him,’ she wished. Never in her wildest dreams had she imagined that a chance meeting with a handsome man—taut, tanned, and well mannered—could change the course of her day.

Pleased and taken aback, Vera was happy that the man had actually called her; he again invited her for a coffee. Vera had completely lost where she was up to in her book, as it had fallen from her lap in her rush to grab her mobile telephone. Vera explained to him that she wanted to wait at the unit until her son returned to see if he and his friend had resolved their differences and were friends again; she thought it wise to wait until they returned.

Vera then decided to get cheeky, she bravely asked if he would be interested in exchanging the offer of coffee in the afternoon to dinner in the evening. She knew of a quaint Italian restaurant nearby.

He readily agreed. ‘Well, I guess I should tell you a little about myself,’ he said. ‘My name is Anthony Templeton.’

He went on to tell Vera that he was a manger for an IT company. Anthony explained that due to the years of dedication to his work and family, who had many problems, like his sister being missing for five years, he had remained single. He told Vera that with a few well-timed investments, years ago he had bought a little home on the beach nearby.

Anthony told Vera that each time he came up to the beach house, he would hope that when he arrived, he would find his sister at his home. His sister knew where the spare key was. Although, she had not been in touch with the family for a long time and even though he did not get much time to fish and enjoy with his mates up here any more due to his heavy workload in the city, he liked to keep the house going just in case his sister returned. He told Vera his sister would always retreat to his beach house for a rest from her jet-setting lifestyle.

Anthony explained to Vera that he was only staying at the beach until Sunday, as he had to work on Monday.

Vera replied, ‘Well, I am only on a one-week holiday from Sydney. There is not much to say about me. My name is Vera Harris. I also am single, although I do have two grown-up sons who came up here with me. I work for a commercial builder in the city.’

After she talked about the wonderful beach and how her sons were going fishing the next day, Anthony said, ‘Vera, how about I pick you up at seven o’clock tonight? Where should I pick you up from?’ Being polite, he did not just want to come out directly and ask for her address.

‘The Winston Towers, unit 7.’ She gave him the address cautiously. Why not? she thought. There was a hint of romance in the air.

Vera rarely dated, as she worked long hours. She had also spent the last twenty-odd years working and bringing up her sons, alone.

After a while, Philip rang his mother and explained he and his friend were going to the club for lunch and have a talk and maybe go to a movie.

As her afternoon was now free, Vera decided she would ring a hairdresser and make an appointment to have her hair done. The hairdresser suggested three o’clock; she agreed this would suit her.

That will give me time for a