Ghost Huntress Book 6: The Journey
Read Ghost Huntress Book 6: The Journey Online
Authors: Marley Gibson
The Journey
BOOK 6
Marley Gibson
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2012 Marley Gibson
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
eISBN: 978-1-937776-43-5
“This book has suspense, chills, and adventure—everything ghost hunting should be!”
~ Zak Bagans, star of Travel Channel’s
Ghost Adventures
“Every young woman needs to read this!”
~ Steve Gonzalves, of SyFy Channel’s
Ghost Hunters
and
Ghost Hunters Academy
“Real life ghost huntress, Marley Gibson, pulls no punches.”
~ Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson, stars of SyFy Channel’s
Ghost Hunters
“Kendall's witty narrative voice (she quotes Shakespeare and Ugly Betty with equal aplomb) drives this fast-paced, wholesome-with-an-edge tale.
~ Publishers Weekly Review
“This book reads like a good episode of your favorite ghost-hunting show…. Teens who watch Ghost Whisperer or Haunting Evidence…will eat this up….”
~Booklist
“
Ghost Huntress
has it all - mystery, romance, ghost hunting and a quirky psychic teen named Kendall who I’d love to be friends with! ”
~ Simone Elkeles,
New York Times
bestselling author
“Marley Gibson’s heroine, Kendall, walks into the room and the party starts. She’s your ebullient friend from high school, always ready with a joke, who can’t be kept down and won’t let
you
stay down, either. ”
~ Jenn Echols, award-winning author, MTV Books
Books for Teens:
Poser
Radiate
Ghost Huntress: The Awakening
Ghost Huntress: The Guidance
Ghost Huntress: The Reason
Ghost Huntress: The Counseling
Ghost Huntress: The Discovery
Ghost Huntress: The Journey
The Other Side: A Teen's Guide to Ghost Hunting and the Paranormal
Books for Adults:
Can't Touch This (Resisting Temptation series)
Can't Fight This (Resisting Temptation series)
To learn more about Marley visit her website
www.MarleyGibson.com
, friend her on
Facebook
, or follow her on Twitter
@MarleyGibson
!
“Let your mind start a journey through a strange new world. Leave all thoughts of the world you knew before. Let your soul take you where you long to be. Close your eyes and let your spirit soar and you’ll live as you’ve never lived before.”
—
Erich Fromm
I can’t believe I’m on my way to freakin’ Europe for a month! And I’m flying first class, at that.
Whodathunkit? Certainly not me. But thanks to a surprise trust fund that fell into my lap from my birth family, I’m able to join the famous TV psychic Oliver Bates, and other enlightened teens, on a jaunt through Europe, ghost hunting, investigating, and connecting with a whole new crop of spirits.
This has been the whirl-windy tsunami hurricane of an existence if I’ve ever known one. My dad’s job moved us from Chicago to Radisson, Georgia, where I started having my psychic awakening. Through all of that, I’ve had to deal with a school bully, a new boyfriend coming into my life, then moving to Alaska, forming a ghost hunting team with my new friends, having a near death experience, and finding out that I’m adopted and both of my parents are deceased. All of this is enough to put any normal person on a good cocktail of medications. Me, I take it in stride and just blink hard at the challenges I continue to face.
Fortunately, this leg of my life journey seems to be a little less challenging at the moment.
I squiggle down into the comfort of my airline seat and let out a contented sigh. These British Airways sleep pods are completely the bomb. Okay, so maybe people don’t use that phrase anymore, but it’s the best way to describe the personal cocoon I have here to myself as we wing over the ocean to our destination. Then again, maybe one shouldn’t use the word “bomb” when on an international flight. Bad Kendall!
My birth dad’s twin sister, Andi Caminiti Norwich (my chaperone for the summer thanks to an agreement with my parents), is sacked out behind me in her own personal pod. She’s wearing the complimentary eye mask, jammies, and is snoring slightly. Good thing I can put my ear buds in if she gets more boisterous. It’s been amazing having Aunt Andi in my life and getting to know her and hear stories about my real dad.
Don’t get me wrong, I still greatly consider the Mooreheads my
real
parents since, like, they chose to adopt me and raise me as their own. They still take excellent care of me and provide for me. There is, though, that itch to complete the full circle to connect with my birth family. My former spirit guide, Emily, turned out to be my mom, and then faded away. I haven’t been able to connect with my dad, but I do have a lead on Emily’s parents possibly living in Italy.
Which brings me to another reason I’m on this overseas jaunt.
I glance over to the pod right next to me where my best friend, Celia Nichols, has made camp. She’s playing some science experiment building game on her tablet computer where it looks like she’s blowing things up. I wonder sometimes if she shouldn’t have been born male. She’s such a thirteen year old boy at times. She’s bobbing her head in time to music flowing from her headphones, her dark hair softly swinging. Celia’s (gladly!) tagging along this summer to help out with whatever paranormal investigations we run across in our travels. Since she’s all about being the rich girl in Radisson with the AmEx card, it was easy for her to cash in points and join me here in first class.
She was pouty right after we took off from Atlanta for our overnight flight to London. Before our dinner arrived and the first movie started—a classic showing of
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
… who knew James Bond’s Ian Fleming wrote that?!—I managed to get out of her that she and Clay Price, her boyfriend, had decided to “take the summer off.” Although Celia’s a glamazon in her own right and doesn’t even know it, I can tell this turn of events has bummed her out to no end. Clay was the first guy she ever dated. The first and only one she ever kissed.
Well, the heck with him and his loss. Been there, done that. Have the T-shirt.
I’m glad she’s getting out to spread her wings in the Old World. Rather, a new world to us.
Another sigh escapes me. This time, it’s one of disappointment. My sweetie, Patrick Lynn, isn’t on the flight with us. Don’t get me wrong, he’s going to Europe. However, to save some money—i.e. to spend it overseas instead—Patrick opted to fly stand-by on a military flight since his father is active Air Force. He actually got called out to Dobbins Air Force Base last night to get on a transport plane and should be waiting for me at Heathrow when we land in the UK tomorrow.
Patrick and I’ve been together since we met in California at Oliver Bates’s enlightened kids camp. We’re so much the same person, what with both of us being psychic and being so connected to each other. He’s perfect for me and I’m crazy about him. We just haven’t said the “L” word to each other… yet.
I stop flipping through the channels on my television and sit back. It’s going to be amazing to work with Oliver Bates again, as well as other psychic teens, in investigating the paranormal in Europe. I’m so glad my mom and dad let me do this and I know I’ll make memories to last a lifetime. It’s also a chance to bond with Aunt Andi and maybe follow up on the visions I’ve had of my
real
mother, Emily’s, parents in Italy. Of course, Italy’s our last stop on this journey. First things first in London, then off to Paris where another member of our ghost huntress team, Becca Asiaf, is competing in the DanceFest for DJs festival. She’s the best DJ I’ve ever watched and listened to, so I know she’s going to blow them away in Europe.
“Kendall, you want me to give you a facial?” Taylor Tillson asks from the row in front of me. Her long tresses are pulled away from her face with a cloth skull headband and her beautiful face is slathered in some sort of conditioning cream. Taylor’s the photographer for our ghost huntress team. She just returned to Radisson from a short stint in Alaska where she had to go live with her father when her mother had to go into a rehab hospital.
I smile, so happy to see her face again on a regular basis. “A what?” I ask with a giggle.
She lifts her cosmetic bag full of under-three-ounce containers of every kind of skin care product on the planet. “I saw this YouTube video on how British business woman use overseas travel to give themselves sort of a spa treatment. I thought it looked
tres chic
, so
voila!”
Oh boy, Taylor’s going to be unbearably French when we hit Paris in a couple of weeks. It’s totally her thing.
“Thanks, Tay-Tay. I think I’ll pass for now.”
She holds up three bottles of glittery nail polish. “A mani then?”
I screw up my nose thinking of the diffusion and how the pungent smell would soon fill the first class cabin. My nails are too short anyway from biting them all the time thanks to whatever random ghost, entity, or spirit guide appears to me. “No thanks, Tay. I think I’ll just chill the rest of the way.”
She waves me off with a wink and a smile and returns to her spa set up.
A snicker across the aisle pulls at my ear.
“The girl needs professional help,” a deep voice says.
Yeah…that’s right. Taylor’s twin brother, my ex, Jason Tillson sits ten feet away from me. Way too close for comfort.
“Considering what your mom just went through, I don’t think that’s a funny joke, Jason,” I say firmly. I’ve touched a raw nerve with him.
“Whatever,” he says and then looks back at his sister. “She’s making a mess.”
“She’s having fun,” I snip back without making eye contact with the blue eyes that I know for a fact are scrutinizing my every move. “Let her be.”
Jason laughs softly again. “Have you just met me?”
His quip is meant to be amusing, but it’s anything but. No… I’ve known Jason for almost a year. In which time, we’ve gone from fussing at each other, to falling for each other, to making out with each other, to saying we
loved
each other, to him up and leaving town to move to Alaska and hook up with some skank named Zelda. Oh, did I go there? You bet I did.
I’m so not happy that Jason is on this trip. He doesn’t believe in the paranormal and is only here to keep a watchful eye on his sister… and me. Their mother recently returned to work for her airline and was able to get the Tillson twins good discounts for their European spree. I couldn’t be happier that Taylor got to come with us. I’m
not
so thrilled that Jason is here.
He’s … too close. Europe’s a big continent, yet something tells me it’s going to get a heck of a lot smaller with the two of us in such close proximity.
The flight attendant removes my dinner tray that I came close to licking clean. Filet mignon, roasted potatoes, and grilled asparagus. Who said airplane food was nasty? I’m drinking Sprite Zero and pretending it’s expensive French champagne. Mmm…
I lift my eyes and glance over at Jason. His black shirt is stretched across his chest and I see his long, bare toes poking out from the end of his jeans that are covered by the airplane blanket. He tosses a way-too-charming smile my way and I glower in his general direction. Celia clicks her tongue as if to tell me to behave.