Haunting

Chapter One

Chapter One

Shannon swore when she saw the moving truck parked in the driveway of an ancient looking Victorian mansion. She should have known to expect this after her father called it a “fixer upper”.

The place was falling apart; she doubted even rats would deign to live there.  Shannon could see where the house’s exterior had been replaced, bare weather boards scattered in the midst of the dark, faded green. There were traces of graffiti on the side of the house and beneath the windows on the second floor. Two of the visible windows were boarded up, most likely broken by some drunken neighbourhood kids. The roof was partially repaired, only half the roof had shingles the other half was covered in a thick black plastic.

She could not believe she would have to live in this dump. To be fair it wasn’t really a dump, it was just old, but in comparison to the mansions that surrounded it, that’s what it seemed like. Not that Shannon would ever admit it to her father, but she could see the beauty in the house behind the disrepair. There were still traces of the ornate details that her father was going to have replaced.

The house may not be beautiful yet but it would be when it was finished, but until then, Shannon was not going to enjoy living there.

She parked out the front of the house and her father tapped on her car window.

Her father was a tall man, with broad shoulders and a full head of salt and pepper hair. He would have been intimidating if she hadn’t known better. Harrison has a glowing trademark grin and Shannon was proud to have inherited that smile.

It didn’t surprise Shannon that her father was able to snag a woman who was ten years his junior and looked ten years younger than that. He was an attractive man, with that George Clooney-esque distinguished older gentleman thing going on.

“Shannon,” Mr King scolded his daughter when she raised her eyebrows questioningly, and pointed at her ears. “Don’t be a smart ass.”

“Sir, yes sir.”

“Out of the car Shannon.” Harrison crossed his arms and his brows furrowed and Shannon decided that she didn’t like to see the annoyance and distrust hidden beneath his calm expression.

Shannon threw open the door of the old red Honda Civic her father gave her for her sixteenth birthday eighteen months ago. Her father had to jump out of the way of the swinging door and he swore. Shannon rolled her eyes at him before doing what he said.

“What do you require from me, father dearest?” Shannon asked haughtily in response to her father’s demands.

“Can you please take Missy and Kelly for a walk while the movers unload the truck, please? They’ve been giving Fiona a migraine.” Shannon didn’t argue, although the last thing she wanted to do was get lost in a town she didn’t know with her prepubescent younger sibs in tow. She hadn’t argued with Harrison in a while.

Shannon looked over to where her step mother was wrangling her two children. “Sure.” Shannon responded, feeling sorry for Fiona. Those children had more personality than brains.

Shannon’s step-mother was beautiful and smart; she wrote recipes for a well-known lifestyle magazine, and Shannon loved her. but seeing the auburn haired beauty surrounded by her auburn haired children made her feel out of place. It wasn’t Fi’s fault; it’s just how it was. Fi raised Shannon but it wasn’t the same.

The children looked like little angels, Missy was a carbon copy of her father and Kelly looked just like his mother, but neither had inherited the brains that either parent possessed.