Shadow Seeker (A Crow Haven Series Book 1) Read online

  Copyright

  Shadow Seeker is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locations, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  SHADOW SEEKER: A Novel

  Copyright © 2020 by Michelle Areaux

  All rights reserved.

  Editing by KP Editing

  Formatting & Cover Design by KP Designs

  - www.kpdesignshop.com

  Published by Kingston Publishing Company

  - www.kingstonpublishing.com

  The uploading, scanning, and distribution of this book in any form or by any means—including but not limited to electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the permission of the copyright holder is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized editions of this work, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteeen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  A Note to Readers

  Extras

  About the Author

  About the Publisher

  Prologue

  Six months ago

  C

  rimson blood stained the ground as I stared down at his lifeless body. Wiping a splatter of his warm blood from my cheek, a deep chill raced down my spine.

  I could feel the loud, piercing screams vibrating through me as they emanated from my body, but no sound ever reached my ears.

  It was as though I was floating above myself, watching the horrific events unfold in front of me, but I couldn’t fathom what was truly taking place.

  He couldn’t be dead.

  This couldn’t be his blood painting my skin.

  We had fought so hard to stay safe-- to stay alive. It couldn’t be all for nothing.

  Not now.

  Not ever this way.

  My heart broke into a million splintering pieces as I crumbled to my knees, taking his cold hands into mine.

  Footsteps echoed all around me as everyone found the tragic scene before us.

  After every plan and every day we had spent attempting to win, it was all ending with him as the casualty of our battle.

  A white hot rage filled my body as I pleaded for him to wake, but knowing deep in my heart, mind, and soul that he was already gone.

  Everything I had come to know was now lost in my sorrow.

  All I could do was think; how did we get here?

  Chapter One

  New Girl in Town

  A

  round midnight, I felt the darkness tugging at my soul. Quiet, seething voices hissed at me as I scrambled to find a place to hide. My breathing was ragged, my heart threatening to jump out of my chest. If they caught me, it could result in catastrophic results. Tiny, golden eyes swirled all around, fighting me to let them in. I was a fighter and, right now, I was sure I was about to fight until my dying breath. Inching their way closer, the air began to leave and I felt suffocated, trapped inside a world in which I didn’t belong. As I opened my mouth to scream for help, my eyes suddenly shot open.

  Panting, I sat up in the seat as the lulling motion of the car brought me back to reality. Outside our car, thick white fog rolled over the countryside, lapping at the side of our car like lost souls trying to catch us. A blood red moon hung low in the sky, welcoming us to the southern part of our country.

  Seconds later, after my breathing had died down, my mom stirs, alerted to my now nightmare.

  “Lizzie, are you alright?” my mom asked, turning in her front passenger seat.

  Wiping a bead of sweat from my brow, I mustered a fake smile. “Sure, mom. I guess I had a bad dream,” I stated. All I could do was nod as I attempted an answer.

  My dad, who kept his gaze focused on the dark highway, chuckled to himself. “I wish I could sleep like that in a car. Not since I was a teenager did, I sleep that soundly,” he mused.

  If only he knew the truth. That nightmare had been haunting my dreams every night for the last two weeks. Just one more thing to add to my ever growing list of weirdness. When you are part of a family like mine, it’s hard not to panic when Demons haunt your mind.

  “Are we almost to the hotel?” I ask dryly, finally catching my breath.

  The images of the dream were still lingering in my mind, but at least I knew it was just that; a dream.

  “About another fifteen-minutes,” my mom stated. “We are in Ohio,” she finished.

  “Great,” I mumbled.

  Rubbing my eyes, I folded my arms across my chest and allowed myself to fall back to sleep.

  Of course, this was how I would spend my sixteenth birthday; traveling across the country with my parents. By car. To our new home.

  Ever since my latest episode, my parents had decided it was finally time to move us out of the town where I was born and raised. They wanted to see the land and thought it would be fun and memorable to opt out of flying on a plane, and instead, decided to drive us from Salem, Massachusetts, to Kentucky. As with everything in my life, this wasn’t my choice. Trust me, if I had known what was awaiting me as I arrived in the small Town of Nicholasville, Kentucky, I would have fought to change my circumstances.

  There were only two things in life that I was certain of; I wasn’t like most teenage girls and darkness always seemed to find me.

  Most people had dreams filled with happiness, but not me.

  I’d never planned on stealing the shadows of others, but that is exactly what I found myself doing.

  However, that wasn’t the strangest thing about me-- not even close.

  But to understand me, you have to understand where I come from.

  My mom, formally Sadie Sanders, was a Mediator to the dead. And, her history became my reality. Because right now, my life is spiraling out of control as I struggle to find a way to survive in a world full of monsters and all things that go bump in the night.

  Small towns get all types of reputations.

  Being Boring, everyone is stuck in everyone else's business, and most importantly, news traveled fast.

  Moving from a large, historical town like Salem, there were plenty of tourists streaming in and out of the city at all times of the year. This I enjoyed because I could hide away amongst the people that crowded into our old city. Here, people would know I was new. They would see me and I hated to be seen. I guess you could say, I had learned how to hide amongst the crowds. I wasn’t like most girls, I was different. And my differences caused everyone at my last school to believe I was a freak, psychologically impaired. Crazy. However, it wasn’t until I freaked out in Algebra, screaming that a dark shadow Demon was going to attack me, that everyone stopped assuming I was insane and finally believed it.

&
nbsp; We had stopped for the night at a small hotel just outside of Cincinnati, Ohio. Waking the next morning, we had driven the last two hours to get to the small, southern Kentucky town in which I was forced to now call home.

  A black Crow circled our car as my dad turned onto a small, gravel drive. With my face plastered against the hot glass panes of my passenger seat window, I allowed the heat to contain the numbness that had settled in. The white hot window should have burned my skin, but I welcomed the pain.

  We passed by the stone, ‘Welcome to Nicholasville’ sign and I heard my mom sigh as she reached over and grabbed my dad’s hand. They had so much history here in this town. A history I still wasn’t fully aware of.

  Noah and Sadie Bufford were major history fans. In fact, the Ghosts of the past seemed to be their calling and were never away from our daily lives. It was part of their own story and what made my family so unique and...wickedly twisted.

  As we turned onto Main Street off the highway, I spotted my first glimpse into the tiny town. A Waffle House and Walmart greeted us as we continued to drive south down the small, two lane road. It was a huge contrast to the world of Salem, Massachusetts, where I had lived.

  With each minute that passed, I noticed the town forgetting its more modern stores and styles for the rugged feel of an older time. Buildings which had been standing since the late 1800’s now lined the two lane street. We passed by a small dance studio and the massive courthouse with its high peaks and stone exterior. A statue of the founder of Jessamine County symbolically stood on the lawn of the courthouse, speaking to the whole city.

  We turned right off Chrisman Mill Road and the car slowed along the side of the small, two lane road. My eyes searched the vast greenery outside my window, wondering and waiting for something, anything to happen.

  A loud squawk alerted my eyes to the sky above, where dark gray clouds were rolling in across the fading blue sky. A wild storm was brewing in the distance, and I shuddered as a rumble of thunder boomed above us.

  My eyes locked on the beast as it seemed to follow our car from a safe distance. His yellow, beady eyes locked with mine and it was as though I forgot how to breathe. It was a strange sensation, but I just shook my head as I stifled a laugh. I was allowing my emotions to get the best of me and I was definitely losing it.

  “You remember any of this?” my mom asked from the front seat. She turned so that she could have a view of my face, but what she caught was my eye roll.

  “The last time I was here, I was five,” I reminded her, slumping back down into my seat.

  Sighing, I continued to stare out the window, looking for anything that would alert my brain that this was familiar.

  My new home felt oddly cold and unwelcoming.

  When my mom had inherited her Aunt Morgan’s farm, the last thing I ever expected was for her to announce that we would be moving across the country to the small, sleepy Town of Nicholasville, Kentucky.

  My mom of all people should understand my reluctance to pack up my life and move. When she was sixteen, my grandparents had moved her from sunny California to gloomy Salem, Massachusetts. It was in Salem that I had lived most of my life--up until now. Most of my life, I had been moved around as my mom ‘worked’ with small towns and the restless souls who inhabited them.

  So, you would think that she wouldn’t want to put her own daughter through the same turmoil, but, of course, she did.

  I guess it worked out for my mom. She met my dad, Noah, and they were those goofy high school sweethearts that made you want to gag. Sometimes, they still acted as though they were in high school.

  Bringing the car to a stop, my dad turned and snorted. “You know, Lizzie, I remember a time when your mom had to come here for a summer. We hadn’t been dating very long, but still, your grandparents had made her come down here. I came, too, and we had a very exciting summer,” he said, sharing a familiar smirk with my mom.

  I knew what they were alluding to and even now, as a sixteen-year-old, I hated when they brought up the secrets of our family. I was named Elizabeth at birth, after someone who my mom said was very special to her. But, my family called me Lizzie. Once when I was in seventh grade, I had to write a paper about my family. It hadn’t meant much to me in the beginning, but as I began to delve into my family history, I quickly realized there was no way I could write the truth about my family. At least, without sounding like a complete lunatic-- or liar.

  At first glance, you would never look at me or my family and think we were anything but normal. Just your average humans living their lives, but if you really got to know us, you would quickly uncover that we were anything but normal.... And anything but human.

  You see, my mom is a Mediator--someone who can converse with the recently deceased. It’s not like we have Ghosts just running around our house, but the occasional spirit isn’t uncommon, either.

  No, that would be crazy. Instead, they would come to her when they had one last message they needed to send to a new one or had an unresolved conflict. She helped them and I had been fascinated by her gift for as long as I could remember.

  It was a secret that I knew to keep. I had been warned more times than I could count that if I ever breathed a word of who or what my mom was--outside of our family-- it could be deadly for us all. Especially, since I had my own strange gift, too. While I couldn’t talk to the dead, or help anyone move to the afterlife, I had been able to see things-- mostly dark shadows and lights, that others couldn’t see. There was nothing special about what I could do, and, in fact, it only solidified the fact that I was just strange. Recently though, the darkness that I saw lurking within the shadows, began chasing and attacking me. The ‘episodes’ as my school counselor called them, grew each day until I could barely function without feeling like I had to constantly look over my shoulder. The biggest problem though; my mom wasn’t seeing them.

  A Mediator not seeing a shadowy figure-- was I crazy or just different?

  So far, there was no explanation for it, but we all knew it wasn’t normal.

  So, with that knowledge, I had kept my mouth closed and myself closed off from most people my age.

  My dad, who was as normal as anyone human could be, was the only other person who knew how deep our secrets as a family really traveled. Even my mom’s best friend, Lucy, who I called Aunt Lucy, only knew the top layer of my mom’s secrets.

  However, when my great aunt passed away and left her farm to my mom, I wasn’t given much of a choice but to move and start a new life.

  And that was where my problems began.

  Lately, my life has felt more like a dream than a reality. And not one that I was too keen on living. I had questions for my mom, but she wasn’t giving me many answers. At least not the answers I was looking for anyway.

  There was something about this small town that I was now about to call home, that had played a significant role in her life as a Mediator. My dad’s, too.

  Only, no one would divulge that information to me. I refused, though, to be uprooted from my life and placed in a whole new world, without any understanding. I would get answers. But when, I wasn’t sure.

  “What do you think?” mom asked, pointing to the house which had been renovated. She had shaken me from my own thoughts and I had to pause before answering. On the outside, it resembled the home I had seen in pictures over the years. A large, two-story, brick house stood towering above me. Only a small amount of light shone through the dark haze that seemed to surround the southern style house. The exterior had been painted white and black barn door shutters outlined the large windows. Where a barn used to be, a large pool was being installed.

  “It looks…” I wasn’t sure what to say. “Old,” I spit out, with a grimace.

  “Well, of course it’s old,” she laughed. Throwing her arm around my shoulder, my mom led me onto the large, wrap-around porch. Construction crews were busy adding all of the final touches to the home, and the interior designers were busily placing furniture inside our r
ooms. Unlike my grandparents, my mom had decided to already have the house furnished with our furniture and the house ready to move in. Her office would overlook a large pond on the backside of the property. As a journalist, my mom’s occupation allowed her to travel and work from anywhere she lived. My dad was a freelance architect. He took jobs he wanted and could work from home, too. They prefered this, they had once told me. It was a way that they could feel free and not tied down if they needed to move quickly. It wasn’t until I was older that I understood the underlying meaning behind those words.

  As we walked inside the home, I couldn’t help but marvel at the modern decor inside this chic farmhouse. My mom sighed, taking it all in. “Lizzie, you may not understand it now, but soon you will. This town has a special place in my heart. This town is magical, just wait and see,” she winked, before leaving me standing in the foyer stunned and alone.

  Chapter Two

  Won’t You Be My Neighbor

  I

  guess you could say I am not your typical teenage girl. With a mom who is a Mediator to the dead, nothing I said as a kid ever surprised her. Well, that is until I told her I could see shadows. Not just your average creepy shadows that painted your walls at night. No, these were moving shadows that could suck the life right out of you if you allowed them to. At least, that was the illusion they presented. Yeah, I know, pretty freaky, right?

  You see, I have always known I was different. Growing up watching your mom talk to dead people can have that sort of effect on a girl. But, that’s not what makes me different. No, I am different because I am nothing like my mom. While she can communicate with the dead and help them, I seem to only find shadows-- the dark and twisted forms that follow around its victims.

  I’ve somehow managed to handle this insane gift or curse-- whatever it is. I have turned a blind eye. I have ignored them and I have held my breath until the dark shadows slithered away and out of my reach.