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Haunting the Night
A Past Midnight Novella
Mara Purnhagen
Charlotte Silver has been through hell.
Her mom’s in a coma. She may have caused the death of a young man. And now her friend Avery wants her to tackle going to Prom? Not going to happen, even if she is dying to spend some alone time with her boyfriend, Noah. Instead, Charlotte needs to find some answers to a few nagging questions—why was her family attacked? Will her mother survive? And is there a creature from the Other Side coming for her? Soon enough, Charlotte’s search for the truth becomes a race against time. But she may just find the sign she’s been looking for all along….
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
About the Author
Chapter One
I refused to wear a bloodstained dress to Prom. “No way,” I told Avery. “I’m not going.”
“Please, Charlotte,” my best friend implored. “It’s your last chance.”
But I had made up my mind. The event I had spent months looking forward to no longer held any luster. I wasn’t going to my senior prom, and nothing Avery said was going to change my mind. But that didn’t keep her from trying.
“It’s my one and only time as head of the prom committee,” she said. “I’ve put so much work into it. And you’ve helped me a ton. I need you there.”
The only things I had helped with included tossing glitter onto neon posters and agreeing with Avery’s choice of table decorations. “Sorry.” I shook my head. “It’s not gonna happen.”
She sighed and set down the magazine she had been flipping through, startling Dante, her little dog. It was Friday afternoon, and we were hanging out in her room before dinner. It had become part of my new routine to go to her house after school. Dad didn’t return home from the hospital until seven every night, and I didn’t like to stay in my house alone.
“We can get you a new dress, you know.”
I rolled my eyes at the suggestion. Did she really think that was it? That if I bought a new, blood-free dress, everything would be okay? I knew Avery. She was a problem solver and a good friend. She couldn’t possibly believe that a sparkling new gown would fix everything that had happened over the past four weeks.
“I won’t be in town that weekend, anyway,” I said. “I’ve already made plans to visit Annalise in Charleston. I leave on Wednesday.”
Missing three days of school would have been a big deal to my parents at one point. But Dad agreed that I needed a little time away and he’d worked something out with the principal.
“You can go to Charleston anytime! There won’t be another senior Prom.”
She was persistent, but I was stubborn. We had reached an impasse, so I tried to change the subject.
“Thanks for those history notes. I think I did okay on the quiz today.”
Avery snorted. “I don’t understand why they can’t give you a pass on those things. You have enough to think about without having to study for pointless tests.”
But I liked studying. It gave me something to focus on other than my mom. And my teachers had given me a free pass for a few weeks. At first, I couldn’t even hold a pen because of the stitches sewn into my palm. It hurt too much. So I was allowed to take oral exams and given extra credit work. After my hand finally healed, it was back to my regular class work.
I examined my hand now. The jagged pink scars would be unnoticeable to anyone not looking for them. But I noticed them. Every day I saw them, and was reminded of how they got there.
“Hey.” Avery’s voice was soft. “You okay?”
I closed my hand. “I’m fine.”
It was my standard lie, and Avery wasn’t buying it. “It wasn’t your fault. You know that.”
But I didn’t know that, despite my friends and family assuring me of my innocence on a daily basis. My careless mistakes had landed both my parents in the hospital. I had endangered my friends.
And I was the reason why a young man now lay in a coffin.
Avery’s phone rang. She shot me an apologetic glance. “Prom stuff. I have to take this.”
I walked over to her bookshelf while Avery discussed tiaras with her caller. “We settled this. I don’t want anything tacky, and that one is definitely tacky.” There was a pause. “No, I said tasteful. A two-foot crown is not tasteful, and I doubt it’ll sit right on the queen’s head. Go back to our first choice, okay?”
She sighed and hung up. “Sometimes I think we should switch from Prom Committee to Prom Dictatorship.”
I laughed. “All hail Avery, Queen of the Prom.”
She waved her hand. “Please. I withdrew my name from the ballot. I’m not in the running for Prom Queen.”
“Really?” I was surprised. Avery could easily win the votes needed to earn the coveted crown.
“I was Homecoming Queen last year. It wasn’t quite the life-altering thrill I thought it would be, and I doubt Prom will be any different. Someone else should win this title, someone who actually wants it.”
“That’s noble of you.”
“Not really.” She frowned. “Based on the initial votes, Harris Abbott is a shoo-in for Prom King, and there’s no way I’m going to stand next to him on a platform and smile after what he did to you.”
What Harris Abbott had done to me was something I wanted to completely forget. And for the most part, I had. We had dated briefly after New Year’s, until I discovered he already had a girlfriend and was simply using me to help her. Or rather, he was using me to get to my semi-famous ghost-hunting parents. Mom and Dad worked to debunk some of the world’s most famous ghost stories. Their books and TV deals meant that we spent little time living in one place—until last year, when we arrived in South Carolina and I accidentally got a glimpse of the other side.
“Harris doesn’t matter to me anymore,” I told Avery now.
“Good. He shouldn’t.” She shrugged. “Doesn’t mean I want to be anywhere near him, though.”
A glance out the window told me that it was later than I thought. Even though I lived just a short walk up the street, I didn’t want to be outside when it got dark.
“I should go,” I said, standing up. “My dad will be home soon.”
Avery started to say something, but stopped. “Okay. I’ll call you later.”
The sun was setting fast as I hurried up the hill, and even though it was warm outside, I shivered a little. It wasn’t the approaching dark that frightened me. It was the things that could hide within it.
When I first saw the strange shadow, it was crouched across the street. From my view at the living room window, it appeared at first to be a small dog, about the size of Dante but black in color. My heart pounded with the recent