Shire Bottom Chronicles

Chapter Five

The sun was just beginning to rise as Rose arrived back at the apartment. She had been up for almost 24 hours since her desk clerk, who was supposed to take over at two a.m., didn't even show up until six-thirty a.m., claiming that he was stuck in traffic for five hours. Honestly, how stupid did he think she was? Shire Bottom had less than 800 people in the entire town.

Rose couldn't help thinking that maybe Cat was right; maybe she was too soft on her employees. She'd let her employee force her to work an extra five-and-a-half hours, and only let him off with a warning. She had briefly considered reenacting the Hellborne decapitation but quickly stopped the thought, knowing that the lack of sleep was really messing with her.

She glanced around and realized Cat was nowhere to be found. She must have decided to stay at Bane's house.

Rose sighed as she finally fell into bed, not even bothering to change out of her work clothes. She drifted off to sleep, hoping that the nightmares didn't pick up where they left off the previous night.

* * *

Rose woke up to a loud ringing. She blindly felt around on the nightstand for her phone. She groaned as the light from the screen hit her eyes. Looking at the time, she could see it was only 7:40. Allie's name and contact picture flashed on the screen.

"What, Allie?" Rose snapped, answering the obnoxious brunette's call.

"I need to talk to someone," Allie said quietly, unfazed by Rose's tone.

"Parker was late again, and I just got home from a fifteen-hour shift; can this wait?" Rose groaned, knowing that Allie was incapable of just spitting out what she wanted. Rose knew this conversation was just too much on only forty-five minutes of sleep.

"Rose, I'm worried about Jessica. She came back and Jesse told me—" Allie blurted out before Rose cut her off.

"Jessica who?" Rose asked. Her tired brain couldn't put a face to the name.

"My sister Jessica!" Allie exclaimed, her voice rising in panic. "I think she's in danger."

The image of a tall, thin, redheaded girl came to Rose's mind. Jessica had died many years ago at the age of seventeen. The stories surrounding her death and restless spirit had grown more outlandish over the years. Rumors swirled that someone in town had murdered her, and that she was buried beneath Spring manor and used to haunt the property.

Rose didn't know what to believe. Allie, Jesse, and some of their friends were adamant that they had seen her ghost. Rose even thought that she saw her a few times, but looks can be deceiving. Then, a few years ago, the sightings of Jessica suddenly stopped.

Everyone had their theories, but Rose knew there was a logical reason that the sightings had stopped. After years of Allie claiming to communicate with the ghost of Jessica, her mom finally convinced her to see the best psychologist in town, Dr. Churchill Cabot. Even Rose had a couple of visits with him, and he told her she likely saw the ghost because Allie had insisted it was there. She repeated the story of Jessica's ghost enough that it became easy for her friends to imagine it, plain and simple.

"Look, I'm sorry your sister died, but I thought we were past this after all the visits to Dr. Cabot." Rose sighed, knowing that going back to sleep wasn't going to happen now. When Allie got an idea like this into her head, it wasn't easy to get past. Jesse would go along with whatever Allie asked him to, so going to him for the truth would be a long shot.

"I told you she wasn't in my head. Jesse always saw her, too. That's all beside the point. Jessica said that Cat is working on something and we need to watch out. Have you noticed anything strange going on at your house recently?" Allie pried.