The Well: A Ghost Story (@KA_Raines)

Happy Halloween! I hope you all like ghost stories!

Warnings: This story depicts some domestic violence and cursing, but nothing too graphic.

The Well

I hadn’t slept well since learning that my mother had passed three days ago. We were never close. Actually, I hadn’t seen her since my wedding seven years ago, but that somehow didn’t make things easier. She’d had a difficult childhood, and so she’d raised me sternly, the only way she’d known how to bring up a child. I suppose death made it easier to be forgiving.

Seven years. I contemplated the number. That’s how long I’d been married. Chris and I were engaged for a year. Picked out this house after we’d been married for two when Chris deemed it was time for us to start trying for children. I’d learned that going along with his plans was simply easier than arguing. At any rate, it’s a lovely but modest four-bedroom. One bedroom is my office, one’s a guest room, and one’s the nursery.

It was the room I liked the most. It was my haven—the place where my demons didn’t seem to follow me. I spent hours there, rocking in my new glider chair, swollen feet propped on the ottoman. I read aloud. Dr. Seuss’s Oh, the Places You’ll Go! was my favorite. I liked to think that the baby could hear me and was soothed by my voice. Chris thought I was a bit nuts, of course, but I’d been reading up on it. There was a lot of evidence suggesting infants are positively affected by voices and tones outside the womb.

I met Chris at a Christmas party a decade ago. He was an orthopedist and more than a bit close-minded. He didn’t put much faith in anything, really. His job was to mend bones, but I happened to know that he was rather adept at breaking them as well.

“There you are.” I looked up Chris’s appearance in the doorway. One hand drifted protectively to my swollen belly as I lowered the book. “Ready to go?”

I forced a smile. I’d become adept at forcing smiles. Placing the book aside, I looked one last time at the crib and pretty ivory farmhouse bedding I’d selected. Reluctantly, I followed my husband down the stairs and out the door. He placed a hand on my back possessively, not protectively—I’d learned the difference years ago—and guided me into the passenger seat. Chris always drove. Like everything regarding my husband, it was easier not to make a fuss about it.

As the BMW pulled out, ushering me to my mother’s funeral, I glanced up at my lovely white-slatted home and the nursery window one last time. Maybe it was the lack of sleep, but there appeared to be a figure hovering beyond the white lace curtains. I pressed my hand against the cold glass of the car window and blinked to clear my vision, but then we were pulling away, ambling down the bleak path on this likewise bleak day.

*  *  *

The funeral drained me physically and emotionally. At almost nine months pregnant, I couldn’t handle being on my feet for long stretches. My back and feet ached. The child in my womb—my baby girl—felt like she was squishing all of my internal organs, which made it difficult to breathe. I couldn’t handle relatives—mostly distant, virtual strangers—offering their condolences while Chris stood idly by, playing the part of the supportive husband.

The wake was held at my mother’s house, which she’d left to me—and which I planned on selling. I never thought I’d set foot in here again. It was a modest three-bedroom in a ramshackle neighborhood. Poor but well-kept. It was one of those old houses with a floorplan with no hallways; the rooms simply boxed in the main parlor. My father left when I was just a little girl, and my mother busted her butt as a nightshift nursing assistant to make sure there was food on the table. She was meticulous, organized, and highly religious. When I rebelled as a teenager, she hadn’t known how to handle me.

I’m not sure what propelled me to open the door to her room, which was the one to the right of the parlor. The same old patchwork quilt, faded with age, was spread neatly across the double mattress. A single cross adorned the wall above the wrought-iron bed frame, the only piece of décor on the yellowing walls. Her bible was open on the old oak dresser, and I briefly wondered if it shouldn’t have been buried with her. I experienced a pang of guilt that I hadn’t been the one to decide the funeral arrangements. I realized, quite suddenly, that I had no idea who had since I’d found out about her death. Her church friends who were hosting the wake? The nice neighbor lady I’d just met?

 She might not have been an ideal mother, but it struck me at that moment that I was a terrible daughter.

 A movement in my peripheral caught my attention, and that’s when I noticed the young girl sitting at my mother’s vanity. Dressed in black funeral attire and with a head of long, light brown hair, she couldn’t have been older than six or seven. I think I’d noticed her at the funeral. Had to be the child of one of my cousins.

When she smiled at me in the mirror, I attempted to return it, but I knew it didn’t reach my eyes. “Hi, sweetie, you really shouldn’t be in here,” I said as gently as I could manage. I was a bit taken aback that I hadn’t immediately noticed the child’s presence in my mother’s room. She must have been sitting unusually still.

Nonplussed, the girl hopped to her feet and straightened her black dress. She smiled at me as she passed, leaving me alone with my mother’s things. Once she was gone, I approached the vanity that the child had just vacated. There was an ornate box I recognized from my childhood. I recalled sneaking in here and going through it more than once, and as such, I knew it contained photos, jewelry, and other knickknacks that my mother had saved over the years. I hesitated for only a moment before taking the box. I’d have to go through my mother’s things at some point before selling the house. Or maybe I’d just hire someone to clear it all out. This was all I really wanted of my mother’s.

* * *

Even though it was barely after six o’clock by the time we left my mother’s house, it was so dark out that it might as well be midnight due to the shortened days. The temperature had also dropped considerably. As soon as we got in the car, I could smell the alcohol on Chris. Since it hadn’t been served at the wake, he must have brought it.

I bit my tongue as he pulled onto the darkened county road that cut the shortest path home. I knew better than to say anything. However, as the bends became sharper, and he narrowly avoided driving us into a copse of trees—he was going way too fast—I could no longer hold my tongue. “Chris, honey, would it be all right I drove for a change? I’d really like to. I’m just restless from the funeral.” I held my breath.

“Why don’t you just take a nap, dear? I’m sure you’re exhausted.” He only ever called me dear in a sarcastic, deprecating tone.

As he took his eyes off the road to look at me, a car came around the next bend, and Chris had to swerve to avoid hitting it; he honked, let out a string of curses, and rolled down his window to flip off the other driver, even though Chris was the one who’d impeded the other lane.

My heart was pounding in my chest at the near-miss. My arm curled instinctively around my belly. “Chris, please,” I whispered. I hated the desperation in my voice. I hated the tears in my eyes. More than anything, I hated that this is what I had become—a simpering woman, afraid of her own husband and who had abandoned her mother.

The backhand came so quickly I didn’t realize it until the pain exploded behind my eye in a rippling haze and split my lip open.

“Goddammit, Elsie!” he roared as I cowered against the door in fear and pain, one hand shielding my face, fearful of another attack while my other stayed curled around my belly. “Look what you made me do! And you could go into labor anytime! How the hell are we supposed to explain your face, huh? Don’t you think?”

Yes, I thought. I thought I might vomit from the pain or pass out, but just as that entered my mind, I noticed something on the road. Sitting upright, I wiped the tears from my eyes, and which promptly widened at the sight of a person, a small child in the headlights—

“Chris, stop!”

He cursed loudly as he slammed on the breaks.

I waited for the impact that never came, simultaneously thankful for my insistence on safety as the belt kept me firmly in place when the car squealed to a halt.

“Where’d she go? Where’d she go?” Chris was mumbling.

I shook my head. I was trembling as I unlatched the belt and clamored out of the car.

“Else? Where the hell are you goin’? Get your ass back in here.”

I ignored him as I walked around the car and stood in the twin beams. I was sure I’d seen a small child in the road. Chris had seen her, too.

I shivered as I glanced at the trees bordering the road. The air was calm, windless, and the cloud cover rendered it an unusually dark night. The effect was disconcerting. Ominous. “Hello?” I called toward the trees.

Not even the chirp of an insect returned my call. I hugged myself tighter and walked to the side of the road.

“Elsie. Elsie! The hell do you think you’re doing?”

“Just checking,” I called back.

He continued to call for me, but I ignored him as I stepped off the road and into the undergrowth. I’m not sure what propelled me to do so. I couldn’t explain it if you asked, but something beckoned me further into the forest like a siren’s call. Behind me, I could hear Chris finally exit the vehicle—his footsteps and cursing were loud in the preternaturally still night air—as I moved deeper between the trees, ignoring the scrapes of my skin on brambles and bark. I had left my jacket back in the car, and the chill bit my flesh, but I ignored it.

“Elsie, when I catch up to you, you’re gonna wish you’d listened!” Chris called from somewhere behind me, but for once, I wasn’t scared of him. I moved purposefully forward, propelled by that unseen force. Occasionally, I caught snatches of girlish whispers and giggles in the dark. And it was dark. And it was cold. And I was pregnant and alone. And I was being stalked by a predator who called himself my husband. Yet I wasn’t afraid because I somehow knew my life was about to change for the better.

I broke through the trees and emerged in a clearing. The clouds had parted enough that the child standing in the center was sufficiently illuminated in pale moonlight; it was as if she’d been waiting for me. It was the child from the wake. The one who’d been in my mother’s room. I approached her and stopped within touching distance. She was solid, but I wondered whether she was some otherworldly apparition. How had she come to be in this forest? Why had she been in the road?

“Who are you?” I settled for asking.

She merely smiled. And promptly vanished, as if she’d never been there. I stared for one stunned moment. Blinked. I couldn’t comprehend it.

Before my mind could attempt to process this event further, however, my lumbering husband broke through the trees, having finally caught up with me. He was winded and sweating. “Goddamit, Else. What the hell’s the matter with you? Look, I’m sorry about hitting you. I won’t drink as much. I’ll try to do better. Shit.”

He stopped in front of me. I smiled; reached up to touch his face, which I had once so adored. “I know. And I forgive you. Dear.”

In a swift motion, I grabbed him and shoved him into the old well directly behind me; it’s where the child had led me, for this specific purpose.

The well was deep, but not so deep that the fall killed him. He was screaming death threats at me as I calmly turned and walked back to the car.

At home that night, feet propped up on the ottoman in my nursery, I opened my mother’s box, using my swollen abdomen as a desk. In it was her rosary, several of my baby teeth, my first lock of hair, and some other odds and ends. There were faded photos from her girlhood. One was taken at her first communion. She wore a black dress with white lace trim and pearl buttons. She had long, light brown hair and a mischievous smile.

I returned the girl’s smile. “Hi, Mom. I’m sorry for being a shitty daughter. Thank you for saving my life.”

© 2020 K.A. Raines

~~~

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you enjoyed and that you’ll leave a comment & let me know you were here. 🙂

My debut novel, The Infiltrator, available HERE ~ Only $2.99 and always FREE on Kindle Unlimited!

“What an awesome story! …Derrick…he’s a sexy, gruff, foul-mouthed, gun-toting, cigarette-smoking, mentally-unhinged country boy, and he’s absolutely perfect.” 

-Amber Daulton, author of the Arresting Onyx series

3d Hardcover on transparent

A virus has rendered humanity mostly extinct. Keira Starr is alone, staying alive by staying on the run, sleeping in empty gas stations and the trunks of cars long abandoned on the highway. The world is overrun by “Ghosts,” the mindless, bloodthirsty dead, but they are the least of her problems. She is being hunted by ragtag groups of ruthless men, independent contractors working for a mysterious human trafficking ring. When she is finally captured, she discovers that Derrick Caine, despite his gruff demeanor and appearance, may just have a different agenda altogether.

#MFRWHooks ~ Clear as Crystal (@KA_Raines)

Welcome to MFRW’s weekly Book Hooks blog hop! To check out the other blogs in this hop, simply click the banner below or in the side bar.

For this week’s book hook, I thought I’d share an excerpt from my WIP, which I’m aiming to release early next year. Homicide Detective Elle Roshan is stumped by her current case of serial murders, but when she’s partnered (against her will) with handsome, arrogant FBI Special Agent Ty West, the last thing she’s expecting–or wanting–is to actually like him.

In this scene, Elle meets Agent West for the first time. Snark coupled with undeniable attraction ensues.

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“Agent West,” Evans indicated the suit with a nod, “this is Detective Elle Roshan and Detective Mike Dixon. They lead the homicide division here. Detectives, this is Special Agent Jonathan West with the FBI.”

Mike had come around his desk to shake Agent West’s hand, but I didn’t bother standing, thereby forcing him to come to me. The room wasn’t very big. Therefore, I felt a small, petty amount of satisfaction in making this very attractive, well-dressed fed accommodate me by crossing the short distance. As he leaned down and grasped my hand, he smiled, and I got an eyeful of dimples and very white, very straight teeth.

Goddammit. There was no way this man was that attractive. He had to be hiding a flaw beneath that tailored suit of his. A hairy stomach that would put Bigfoot to shame. His twin brother who couldn’t be surgically removed due to intricate vein placement. I’m pretty sure I saw that on a medical show once.

When he glanced down at our hands—mine looked ridiculously small in his overly large one—I felt self-conscious about my jagged nails despite myself. I’d chewed them to nubs last night while going over the case and pacing in my apartment after downing about six cups of coffee. If he didn’t look too closely at my scalp, he might not notice the grays at my overgrown roots—I’d meant to grab a box of root cover-up for weeks—or the fact that I hadn’t washed my hair in two days. I was barely awake this morning when I’d pulled the first clean set of clothes I could find out of my closet, so I knew I was a hot mess.

What the hell was wrong with me, anyway? Who cared what this guy thought?

Despite myself, I couldn’t help but glance at his left hand, taking note of its glaring lack of a band. He was single. At least, he wasn’t married.

“Please, just call me Ty,” Agent West said as he released my hand and stepped back. “Nice grip.”

My brow shot to my hairline. “For a woman?” While it was my personal experience that most women weren’t taught how to shake hands, as a man he didn’t get to point that out. “Army,” I admitted when he opened his mouth again—presumably to apologize.

His smile widened. His teeth were so damn bright that they made my eyes hurt. “Well, thank you for your service, Detective Roshan. I was a Navy Seal myself. We should compare notes sometime.”

That’s when I noticed the smirk Mike directed at me, and this time I did kick him because, conveniently, he was within kicking range now that he’d walked up alongside my desk to shake hands with West. The movement went unnoticed by both West and Evans as Mike winced.

“Detective Roshan is heading the LaFave case,” Evans informed West while gracing me with his best behave yourself or die look.

“I’ve read your working profile of the killer.” Agent West—I absolutely was not going to call him “Ty”—turned to me once more. “Impressive.”

 “Working profile?”

In the corner of my eye, Mike concealed a snort behind his hand, and I refrained from kicking him. Again.

Agent West smiled. Goddamn him. I bet he thought he was charming. “I meant no offense, Detective. It’s very good. I just think it could use some…refining.”

 “Refining.” When I merely parroted the word back at him, my tone dripping with disdain, West’s smile finally wavered, which caused Mike to high-tail it back to his desk; the asshole was about to bust a gasket.

“Yes, Detective,” Evans intervened. “Refining. Which you and Agent West will be doing together. Meet your new partner. Until this case is solved, you and Agent West will be working, eating, shitting, and sleeping this thing. And I don’t wanna hear a word of complaint. Clear?”

I blinked up at the chief. Evans wasn’t easily irritated, but I knew I was pushing it with my attitude when he got like that. I smiled sweetly. “As crystal.”

~~~

Be sure to check out my debut novel, The Infiltrator, available HERE ~ Only $2.99 and always FREE on Kindle Unlimited!

3d Hardcover on transparent

A virus has rendered humanity mostly extinct. Keira Starr is alone, staying alive by staying on the run, sleeping in empty gas stations and the trunks of cars long abandoned on the highway. The world is overrun by “Ghosts,” the mindless, bloodthirsty dead, but they are the least of her problems. She is being hunted by ragtag groups of ruthless men, independent contractors working for a mysterious human trafficking ring. When she is finally captured, she discovers that Derrick Caine, despite his gruff demeanor and appearance, may just have a different agenda altogether.

 

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#MFRWHooks ~ Predator and Prey (@KA_Raines)

Welcome to MFRW’s weekly Book Hooks blog hop! To check out the other blogs in this hop, simply click the banner below or in the side bar. This week, I thought I’d share another excerpt from The Infiltrator, or the scene where Derrick and Keira are FINALLY about to get it on. Warning: This excerpt contains adult content, although it’s nothing too explicit.

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After stringing up a sheet in Derrick’s corner of the garage, Keira stepped back, admiring her handiwork. It wasn’t much, but it would afford them some privacy should the night rover find his way down here at this hour. Also, it muffled the light from the incinerator, leaving just enough of a glow by which to see. Satisfied, she began to undress. Her body hummed with anticipation, every nerve ending sensitized, her physical sensations heightened as she neatly folded her pajamas and placed them next to his cot. The hunting knife Derrick gave her went on top, her boots went lined up neatly next to the stack. As she climbed on top of the tattered but neatly smoothed quilt, clad only in a pair of ridiculously impractical panties—she didn’t bother asking Roz where she found them—she was so giddy with excitement she almost felt drugged.

Her heart hammered as she waited, warmth pooling between her legs and dampening the scant lace, all from mere anticipation of his touch. She was going to have him. She was finally going to have him. They had things to discuss—things that wouldn’t wait much longer—but they would consummate this thing between them first.

She laid back against his single lumpy pillow, hand roaming over her breasts. She pinched her nipples and bit her lip, trailing her hand lazily down her belly and between her legs. When she was younger, she had criticized her body harshly. But her body, while not as young as it once was, was strong. It was a tool that had enabled her survival, and she respected it. And she didn’t have any qualms about enjoying it—or about giving it over to Derrick for their mutual enjoyment. She didn’t dip her fingers into her panties just yet, but idly traced the dampness through the lace, lightly teasing herself. She was tempted to start without him as she thought about earlier that evening, before the alarm interrupted them. She recalled his words, raw and feral: “Wanna taste you.”

Did he think about that a lot? Tasting her? Did he fantasize about it? And she had no doubt in her mind that he touched himself while thinking about her. Because she thought about him…and she knew that he wanted her just as badly as she wanted him. She propped herself on her elbows, losing her patience and tempted to hunt him down, when she realized that he was watching her from the edge of the sheet she’d just strung up. In the dim lighting, his eyes looked almost dangerous, his expression rapt. He’d slunk in without her noticing, evidently frozen at the sight of her, halfway inside the barrier she’d erected, with the sheet draping over his back. He was bare-chested, droplets of water from his shower still gleaming on his chest and beard. He was beautiful. Keira sat up and wordlessly beckoned him, and he obliged eagerly, his expression turning predatory as he stalked toward her. When he stopped at the foot of the cot, she could clearly see, even in the semi-darkness, his sizable erection tenting his dark sweatpants. Her mouth practically watered as she crawled toward him on hands and knees, feeling every bit the predator herself, before raising fully onto her knees. Her arms slid up his bare chest before snaking around his neck, and their mouths met greedily.

Buy HERE ~ Only $2.99 and always FREE on Kindle Unlimited!

3d Hardcover on transparent

A virus has rendered humanity mostly extinct. Keira Starr is alone, staying alive by staying on the run, sleeping in empty gas stations and the trunks of cars long abandoned on the highway. The world is overrun by “Ghosts,” the mindless, bloodthirsty dead, but they are the least of her problems. She is being hunted by ragtag groups of ruthless men, independent contractors working for a mysterious human trafficking ring. When she is finally captured, she discovers that Derrick Caine, despite his gruff demeanor and appearance, may just have a different agenda altogether.

~~~

This is a blog hop. Click the link below to check out the other blogs in the hop!

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#MFRWsteam ~ Ball’s in Her Court Now (@KA_Raines)

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Welcome to MFRW’s monthly Steam Hop, a blog hop for steamy romance writers! Click the banner to the left or on the side bar to view the other blogs in the hop!

For my entry, I chose an excerpt from my debut novel, The Infiltrator. To set the scene, Derrick and Keira barely escaped a pack of blood-thirsty Ghosts with their lives. Wet, cold, hungry, and emotionally exhausted, it’s the perfect set-up…

~~~

Keira sat up then—there was just room in the confines of the tent—and looked down as she watched him take a long, deep drag. As usual, she couldn’t read the look in his eyes because they were shielded by a fringe of dark hair, and there was something acutely masculine about the rugged set of his unshaven jaw. He had one arm casually bent behind his head, his bicep straining against the ripped cotton of his stained tee. “I’m going out on a limb here, Derrick,” she finally said. “I don’t have to go anywhere with you, but I am. I just wanna know what I’m walkin’ into.”

His eyes latched onto hers heatedly as he exhaled slowly through his nose, and the almost animalistic way he was looking at her had her clenching her thighs together, instinctively seeking friction as the familiar warmth pooled low in her belly.

“Yeah?” he said at last, his voice that now-familiar throaty growl that made her insides quiver. “Then what’re you still doin’ here? No one’s forcin’ ya. Can’t say I’d blame you for walkin’ away, since you don’t know me—not really, and you sure as shit wouldn’t be the first.” His free hand snaked out then, lightly landing on her hip, somehow timid yet bold all at once. His fingertips scorched her as his thumb just grazed the flesh beneath the hem of her shirt. She watched as his hooded gaze flickered downward, landing on her nipples that strained against the flimsy fabric, before trailing further down to the simple cotton panties she’d taken from a Dollar General north of Texarkana last week.

She forced her breathing into a steady rhythm, feeling, strangely, both annoyed and aroused—annoyed that he had the ability to arouse her with a simple look. No man should have the sort of power over her. “And no one forced you to come after me. I can take care of myself.”

His hand squeezed her hip ever-so-slightly, his gaze slowly dragging back up to meet her eyes once more as his exploring thumb slipped just beneath the waistband of her panties. “Yeah. No shit.” His eyes were dark with lust, and he didn’t seem embarrassed by the massive erection that his boxer-briefs did nothing to hide.

They continued to make eye contact in an unspoken challenge, the tension heavy in the air between them, and Keira knew that he was waiting to see what she would do next. The ball was in her court. If she wanted him, all she had to do was take him.

She was aware that she looked a mess, and she was sure she must smell even worse. Yet she felt emboldened when she shifted and leaned over him in the next instant, not allowing herself to put too much thought into what she was doing as she draped one thigh over his hips, rubbing her center lightly against him. She continued to hold his gaze as she took the mostly-forgotten cigarette from between his lips and brought it to her own, inhaling deeply. She hadn’t smoked since her college years, when she started dating Kevin and he’d deemed it unattractive, and so she savored the nicotine. Her eyes never left Derrick’s as she slowly exhaled the smoke and pressed the cigarette between his fingers.

She felt irrefutably empowered by his ragged breathing, and by the heat of his impressive length that strained insistently against her inner thigh when she dragged her leg back over his and settled at his side once more. She smiled thinly, knowing that she had regained her power. If she wanted to, she could fuck him stupid and slip off quietly next time he slept. She had been on her own for a while now, and she preferred it that way. She didn’t need other people, and she certainly didn’t need him.

Buy HERE ~ Only $2.99 and always FREE on Kindle Unlimited!

3d Hardcover on transparent

A virus has rendered humanity mostly extinct. Keira Starr is alone, staying alive by staying on the run, sleeping in empty gas stations and the trunks of cars long abandoned on the highway. The world is overrun by “Ghosts,” the mindless, bloodthirsty dead, but they are the least of her problems. She is being hunted by ragtag groups of ruthless men, independent contractors working for a mysterious human trafficking ring. When she is finally captured, she discovers that Derrick Caine, despite his gruff demeanor and appearance, may just have a different agenda altogether.

This is a blog hop! Click the link below to visit the other blogs in this hop!

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#MFRWauthor ~ Let’s Just Get Through Halloween, Mmkay? (@KA_Raines)

MFRW’s Week 41 Blog Prompt: “Pre-Christmas Catalogue Blizzard. Hate them or love them?”

Okay, I’ll admit it. I wasn’t 100% certain to what, exactly, this topic was referring. It’s the word “blizzard” that threw me. I’m guessing we’re not talking about a literal blizzard, since a Christmas Catalogue blizzard seems like the stuff of nightmares (not to mention paper cuts). Therefore, “blizzard” used in this context must mean some sort of pre-Christmas catalogue frenzy. I’m suddenly picturing ugly-Christmas sweater-donned Stepford wives ordering truffles and fruitcakes in front of tastefully decorated mantles. Their plastered smiles never leave their Barbie-perfect features as they peruse the pages. *shudders*

Ugly-Christmas sweater-donned Stepford wives aside, “pre-Christmas” implies “before Halloween.” I could be wrong here and it means directly after Halloween. However, before I’ve even shelled out the money for over-priced yet shockingly cheap Halloween costumes (quite the conundrum, if I do say so myself), we’re being bombarded by the next big money-making holiday on the very next aisle over. All Hallows’ Eve and the birth of Christ are all the same to retailers, I suppose.

Don’t get me wrong; I love Christmas. I love hot chocolate and Christmas lights and Christmas music and peppermint mocha and…more Christmas lights. But I also enjoy celebrating one holiday at a time. Oh, and I’m pretty sure there’s a holiday involving family and good food somewhere in between Halloween and Christmas (for all of those, like me, living in the US).

Regarding catalogues specifically, I didn’t actually realize anyone ordered from them anymore. Personally, I do all of my shopping online and have for a couple of years now.

~~~

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#MFRWauthor ~ Corn Mazes & Bike Trails & Pumpkin Patches – Oh, My! (@KA_Raines)

MFRW’s Week 40 Blog Prompt: “It’s a sunshiny day, what do you do?”

Fall. I love it. So. Friggin’. Much. Don’t get me wrong; every season has its perks. I’m hugely fond of the Christmas season, but being in East Texas we don’t see a lot of snow. Just a lot of cold rain, which means a lot of wet, cold mud. (While I realize everyone who lives in areas who get snow view it as overrated and possibly a nuisance, I view it as magical). Spring, of course, means flower blossoms and the scent of honeysuckle, and it’s cool enough that I can sit on my patio and enjoy the view of the pine trees bordering my backyard without the risk of melting.

I loved summer as a child, and it still has its merits. I love campfires and s’mores and swimming and boating and rafting and beaching. However, lately these fun trips have been few and far between (what with COVID and trying to finish school during summer semesters). And did I mention that summer in East Texas is humid and hotter than hades? While during the spring I sat outside with my daughter while she played on her slip ‘n slide and swing set, by summer the heat and mosquitos had largely driven us indoors.

But, oh, fall, how do I love thee! I can sit on my patio and enjoy the trees again! My kids and I can hit the bike trail!

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We’ve already been out to the corn maze and pumpkin patch on the first sunshiny Saturday when the temp didn’t rise above 80, and we’re looking forward to going back for the Halloween festivities in a couple of weeks. Before COVID, one of our traditions was to visit Six Flags Over Texas for their annual Fright Fest, but my kids and I won’t be doing that this year (I put our memberships on pause). Still, I’m sure we’ll make some new traditions as a family!

What are your favorite things about fall? Do you have any Halloween traditions? Be sure to let me know in the comments!

~~~

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