Spirit Caller 01 - Spirits Rising

SPIRITS RISING
    Book 1 of the Spirit Caller Series

    Copyright 2012 by Krista D. Ball
    ISBN: 978-1-4660-5265-9

    Author’s Note: Please note that I use Canadian spelling; we’re big fans of the letter U!

    CHAPTER 1: The Problem with Not-People

    “I’m not sure about this latte thing, Rachel,” my elderly neighbour said. Steam billowed from the bright blue-and-yellow mug in her hands that read, BEST GREAT-GREAT-GRANDMOTHER, the second “great” having been scribbled above the other with a black marker. She sniffed, her face uncertain.
    “Go on, Mrs. Saunders,” I urged. “I think you’ll like it. Where’s my mail?”
    She shot me her signature “don’t rush me, missy” look before saying, “It’s in the basket by the microwave. I got Amy to pick it up from the post office for you every few days.”
    “I’ll give her a call tomorrow and thank her.” Amy was Mrs. Saunders’s great-great-niece who lived three villages down the road and was such a sweetheart about running errands for people. I retrieved the wicker basket from the counter. The mail was six inches high, so I carried the entire basket back to the table. Mrs. Saunders took a cautious sip of the steaming beverage. No reaction yet. She took another sip.
    The old lady lived next door and was perhaps my best friend since I’d moved to Newfoundland. I’d never called her by her first name. As the oldest woman in the entire Northern peninsula of the province, she received the Mrs. honourific; no one used Mrs. Saunders’s first name. It was one of those Newfoundland rules, or so I’d been told. I’d met eighty-year-olds who called her “Mrs. Saunders.”
    “Well?”
    She shot me a look. “It’s too hot and it has frothy stuff on top.” She took another sip and smacked her lips.
    I grinned and turned to my mail pile. It consisted of a month’s worth of bills, junk mail, and a postcard from the dentist reminding me I was overdue for a visit. In other words, perfectly normal.
    I looked at the old lady suspiciously. “Well?”
    Mrs. Saunders ignored my glare and pointed at her kitchen counter. “Be a good girl and put a spot of gin in this.”
    I had meant the question in reference to the mail, which she bloody well knew from that impish smile on her face. I shook my finger at her, but I walked over to the kitchen counter again, where a near-empty bottle of gin sat in the corner, under one of the dozens of crucifixes scattered throughout the hundred-year-old house. Next to the gin sat a bag of molasses cookies, an apple pie, and two jars of homemade raspberry jam, all neatly arranged like a pagan offering to the gin god.
    I gave her a disapproving glare. “I thought the doctor told you to lay off the sweets.”
    She swatted at my butt when I walked by her. “Don’t start with me, missy.”
    I dribbled a few drops of the pungent booze into her hot drink. Gin latte. The baristas would not approve. While I gave her a hard time on occasion, I didn’t want to harp on her. No point to it. She had a great-grandchild my age. What did I know?
    She tsked at me. “Oh, that’s not enough for a baby with colic. Give me a proper shot’s worth,” she chided me, swatting my butt again. When I jumped, she giggled with her hand over her mouth. “You’ve been putting on weight. You didn’t get pregnant in Mexico, did you now?”
    “Women don’t carry babies in their bums, Mrs. Saunders. You should know that, seeing how you’ve had thirteen of your own.”
    “Only because birth control was illegal back when I was poppin’ out the youngsters. Now, top that thing up.”
    I shot her my best annoyed look and poured enough gin into her coffee mug to raise the liquid inside by a good centimetre. “You’re not having any more.”
    She sipped at the beverage. “Ah, that’s better. Latte, you said?”
    I nodded and put the bottle in the middle of the small kitchen table, circa 1970s, complete with polished chrome. It was my Christmas gift to her. I wanted to buy her a new one, but she insisted on this garage-sale table.
    “So, where is the rest of my mail?” I asked accusingly.
    She took another taste and smacked her lips. “Gin makes everything better. I’m happy you’re back ’ome.”
    I knew she was putting me off, but I decided to go along with it for a bit. I smiled at her and stretched my rather short legs as best I physically was able and propped them up on the adjacent chair. “It’s good to be back. Mexico was nice,