About the Book
Raleigh Cheramie knows what normal is. Of course she only gets to stare at it from a distance, but it doesn’t mean she can’t recognize it when she sees it.
Raleigh is the granddaughter of a traiteur, a Cajun folk healer. Even with her unusual genetic inheritance she could fall somewhere in the range of normal if she wouldn’t have the additional quirk of being traiteur to the dead.
It’s an ability she’d like to return to her ancestors until her sister and first cousin turn up missing. Now she must try to use her talents to find the living by connecting to the dead when she’d much rather figure out the attraction driving her crazy each time the detective on her sister’s case is nearby
Excerpt from the Book
Chapter One
The muddy water lapped against the driver’s window as Raleigh lifted her head from its plastered position. Its heaviness tilted her and nearly caused her to sprawl across the passenger seat. She struggled for balance as the water inched up the windshield. She tried to swallow the sour taste in her throat as a brown snake slithered across the passenger window. Something that she hazily remembered as fear began to tingle through her. The fear slowly crawled up her legs leaving panic in its wake. Her attention darted around at the car’s sparse insides: a pair of Louis Vuitton knock-off sunglasses on the dash, a purple handbag, and a disposable camera on the passenger seat sitting on top of a brown envelope. An empty child’s car seat accosted her as she turned her head.
With the movement, a sharp pain shattered behind her eyelids. Through the pain, she felt as if she hovered above the car, watching the water lapping at her feet, seeping slowly beneath the door.
She gulped against the panic clenching her chest, numbing her fingers.
What was she doing in this car?
She had to be dreaming. Okay, so maybe more like a nightmare than the paperclip dream she’d been having lately.
The moments before she’d lifted her heavy head from the windshield were foggy, images she couldn’t quite form shapes with. She had only the impression of anger and then blackness.
The water continued to rise at its steady pace, and with its rise, the panic inched up her throat.
She glanced down at her body and puzzled over the strange plaid miniskirt and spaghetti-strapped shirt.
A miniskirt? She hadn’t put her butt in a miniskirt since she was twelve and had wanted to be like Madonna. She didn’t wear clothes like this. She didn’t own clothes like this.
The water swirled around her legs. She felt the dirtiness, the muddy spores swirling around her calves. Her body was frozen.
Nauseasness burned her throat as the rising line of water on the windshield swirled before her. The car would be completely under water in moments. She’d be completely under water in minutes. She remembered the repulsive, rancid taste of that water from another time. When? Nothing was sticking in her thoughts just now.
She did know that she hated the Bayou. It was a deep revulsion embedded, even if all other memories seemed to have left. Why couldn’t it be the turquoise blue ocean or even the clear water of a pool? Why the Bayou?
Wait. Didn’t she now live two hours from the Bayou she grew up on?
Raleigh gasped as she lurched upright in bed. Her body trembled and a bead of perspiration rose over her body.
A dream. Just a really bad dream.
The revolting splatters of the red and yellow art piece hanging on her bedroom wall scowled at her.
Was it just a dream? Me’Maw, her grandmother, would be scowling at her just like the hideous painting on the boring wheat walls.
Were paint splatters really considered art? She was sure her nephew could have done better.
Back to the dream now. Dreams- a message from your subconscious to work out everyday problems. Not so complicated for most people to figure out. Those people were not her.
Dream or reality?
It wasn’t as if she wanted to spend her waking moments analyzing every detail of her dreams. But when you were the granddaughter of a traiteur and you’d connected to several dying people before, it came along with the territory.
Raleigh groaned as her head gave a dull throb. What a way to start the day.