Ok, this will be the ONLY time I say this, so listen up. I do NOT own Casper or anything/one/place affiliated.
Kyrie knew better than to come home this late. The lights were off, but that didn't mean her father was asleep. He could be waiting for her, but she hoped not.
Please let him be asleep, or passed out, or something.
She quietly unlocked the apartment door. She opened it far enough for her to squeeze through. Kyrie shifted her leather pack so she could sneak through the opening.
Thank god it didn't squeak this time.
She tip-toed down the hallway, passed the kitchen door on the right.
So far, so good
She silently passed the living room on the left.
Doing great, one more to go.
She snuck as quietly as she knew how passed her father's bedroom door, and hurriedly scampered into her room, at the end of the hall. Kyrie slowly let out the breath she had been holding.
Maybe he's out playing poker. At least he didn't catch me with my goodies this time.
Kyrie loved her father, but like most people, he feared what he didn't understand. He was a loving man, and had always supported her in her various activities, minus one. Her father drew the line at her dealings with the dead and magic.
She sighed.
He'll never understand.
Kyrie sat on her bed and began to rummage through her bag. She pulled out a shrunken head and placed it on her night stand. She gazed at it for a second before returning to the pack. Kyrie then retrieved a worn old book, a small draw-string bag filled with stones, and a charming little gargoyle statue. After placing her new trinkets on the shelf space she had left, she glanced around her room.
Maybe I should think about getting rid of some of this stuff. It does take up a lot of room.
Lining two of her walls were large bookshelves that reached almost to the ceiling. Along the shelves were Kyrie's diverse knick-knacks like her voodoo doll collection, and her sets of Runes. Also adorning the shelves were other various items like a family of shrunken heads, bottles of remedies, daggers, and even a beautiful amethyst-colored crystal ball.
After adjusting her new stuff to her satisfaction, Kyrie placed her worn out leather sack on her night stand and fell into bed, dirty sneakers and all.
She rolled over and gazed at the ceiling. Its popcorn texture didn't hide the water damage, or the small patches of mold all over the place. As Kyrie stared at the various oddities on her ceiling, her mind drifted.
Images of death swirled before her. Decaying corpses and spirits from the beyond clouded her thinking with their mysterious allure. Her body was exhausted, but her mind was racing at the speed of light.
She thought about how the graveyard looked when the season changed from summer to fall, how the trees would shake in the wind, and how the nightly fog made the scene more sinister than it really was. She journeyed through the tombstones time and time again, not only in her mind, but in the real world also.
She would explore each inch of the graveyard, read every name on every tombstone. She would amble through the graveled paths, stopping to gaze at the stars. Kyrie would often bring flowers or little trinkets to lie on one particular headstone. She'd sit and relax for a bit and talk to her mother. She hadn't really known her mother; she'd died when Kyrie was still relatively young. She had known her only through pictures, and her father's constant ramblings of "the good old days." Her mother had been a beautiful woman. Kyrie shared her intense green eyes and the oval shape of her face, along with her full lips and long, brown hair.
After her visits to the graveyard, Kyrie would sometimes stop at her favorite store, Myra's Goods. The shop specialized in the odd and eccentric, and it was here that she attained her knick-knacks. Myra knew her by name, and always saved the newest stuff for her "best" customer to pick through. Kyrie then would proceed home, normally in the wee hours of the morning.
She felt at home when surrounded by things most would consider strange, and she hadn't yet been able to figure out why. The strange had a mysterious pull for Kyrie; it was like she couldn't avoid it even if she wanted to. Odd things always seemed to happen to or around her, but that was perfectly fine.
Of all the weird things she loved, Kyrie was most fond of ghosts.
She was a member of a local group, aptly named The Ghost Hunters. She hadn't been on many ghost hunts, but the few she had she'd loved. She'd taken tons of pictures and consequently had filled numerous scrapbooks with her "ghost pictures." They ranged from mild, featuring orbs or "fog," to the extreme, featuring detailed bodies and faces. In her favorite picture, she got an entire body shot of a woman in a long dress holding a basket.
The group she was apart of had started a website and it had numerous members scattered all over the United States. One such member lived in a little town named Friendship, Maine. It was through this member's postings that Kyrie learned of Whipstaff.
He claimed that Whipstaff was haunted by four extremely active ghosts. This had peeked Kyrie's interest. The user went on to tell about the father and daughter that lived there, and the many incidents that happened around the home. The stories really got her excited, and by the time she scrolled to the bottom of the page, she could barely sit still.
It's going to be so hard to sleep tonight.
Kyrie looked over at her alarm clock.
Wow, its 3:00 already?
She reached over and set the alarm for 8:00.
That should be enough time to get to the airport.
Kyrie rolled onto her side and cuddled against her pillow, and slowly drifted to sleep, thinking of the adventure that awaited her.
