for sleep to return. After floundering in her bed for a few more minutes she realized falling back to sleep was futile. What she needed was a shower and an unhealthy amount of caffeine, and not necessarily in that order.
Her eyes refused to open properly as a thick crusty substance had apparently decided to cake itself to her upper and lower eyelashes. She shuffled into the kitchen half blind, fumbling her way over to the coffee maker. It was then that her nose woke up. She sniffed the air around her again and realized that her nose had not lied, there was already coffee brewing. A groggy, “Humph” escaped her scratchy throat. She didn’t remember setting the timer on her coffee maker; maybe Kat had done it for her. She shrugged, not caring too much about how the coffee had come into being she was just grateful it was made and ready to be ingested.
A few stumbling moments later a steaming cup of the elixir of life in her hand she was shuffling around her bathroom twisting knobs and preparing a scalding shower. She carefully sipped at her coffee while she rubbed at her eyes in an attempt to rid them of the sticky goo that insisted on clinging to her eyelashes. Steam began to fill her closet sized bathroom as she abandoned her clothes and coffee and stepped into the blissfully hot steaming water.
An eternity later Annie was scrubbed, dressed and on her third cup of coffee as she emerged from her house. She squinted up into the clear blue sky frowning at the sun that had decided to wake her a good hour before her alarm clock usually would. Her job as a tour guide required her to keep strange hours. Tours, like most of the business in town, did not begin operations until late morning carrying on throughout the day and sometimes well into the night. Tonight was one of those nights for Annie. She had promised another tour guide that she would cover his ghost tour that evening. She blew out a breath that she hadn’t realized she had been holding, she hated doing ghost tours. She preferred her little historic walks that informed the tourists that there was more to Salem than just witches. Of course that’s what made Salem a hot tourist attraction; one incident in history had branded Salem as the witch town.
Now no matter where you looked you were reminded that witches, innocent women really, once roamed the streets. The iconic image of a witch riding on her broom was everywhere from tee shirts and mugs to the high school mascot and even painted on the side of police cruisers. But at least that was part of history, the ghosts were not.
Ghosts were simply a product of overwrought imaginations that tried to find a supernatural answer when a mundane one would fit. Phantom smells, sudden temperature drops, shadows and whispers all had logical explanations. In Annie’s skeptical mind there was no such thing as ghosts. It was this belief that made leading a ghost tour such a chore for her. She had the script down pat and even added a little of her own spin to it. It wasn’t the tour itself that she minded; it was the never ending supernatural questions that always plagued a ghost tour.
“ Do you believe in ghosts?”
“ Yes,” she would lie. Because honestly why would a non-believer in the supernatural be leading a ghost tour.
“Have you ever seen a ghost?”
“Yes right here were we are standing…” another lie for the tourists. Then she would spin a tale more based in folklore than in actual truth. It was a talent she had inherited from her father who was a professor of folklore and mythology at a small college in upstate New York.
These were the usual question that were always asked on every tour usually by some husband or boyfriend that had been dragged on the tour by his wife or girlfriend who was a firm believer. Following Annie’s made up answer the men were usually smacked and given an ‘I told you so look’. Tourists were nothing if not
Her eyes refused to open properly as a thick crusty substance had apparently decided to cake itself to her upper and lower eyelashes. She shuffled into the kitchen half blind, fumbling her way over to the coffee maker. It was then that her nose woke up. She sniffed the air around her again and realized that her nose had not lied, there was already coffee brewing. A groggy, “Humph” escaped her scratchy throat. She didn’t remember setting the timer on her coffee maker; maybe Kat had done it for her. She shrugged, not caring too much about how the coffee had come into being she was just grateful it was made and ready to be ingested.
A few stumbling moments later a steaming cup of the elixir of life in her hand she was shuffling around her bathroom twisting knobs and preparing a scalding shower. She carefully sipped at her coffee while she rubbed at her eyes in an attempt to rid them of the sticky goo that insisted on clinging to her eyelashes. Steam began to fill her closet sized bathroom as she abandoned her clothes and coffee and stepped into the blissfully hot steaming water.
An eternity later Annie was scrubbed, dressed and on her third cup of coffee as she emerged from her house. She squinted up into the clear blue sky frowning at the sun that had decided to wake her a good hour before her alarm clock usually would. Her job as a tour guide required her to keep strange hours. Tours, like most of the business in town, did not begin operations until late morning carrying on throughout the day and sometimes well into the night. Tonight was one of those nights for Annie. She had promised another tour guide that she would cover his ghost tour that evening. She blew out a breath that she hadn’t realized she had been holding, she hated doing ghost tours. She preferred her little historic walks that informed the tourists that there was more to Salem than just witches. Of course that’s what made Salem a hot tourist attraction; one incident in history had branded Salem as the witch town.
Now no matter where you looked you were reminded that witches, innocent women really, once roamed the streets. The iconic image of a witch riding on her broom was everywhere from tee shirts and mugs to the high school mascot and even painted on the side of police cruisers. But at least that was part of history, the ghosts were not.
Ghosts were simply a product of overwrought imaginations that tried to find a supernatural answer when a mundane one would fit. Phantom smells, sudden temperature drops, shadows and whispers all had logical explanations. In Annie’s skeptical mind there was no such thing as ghosts. It was this belief that made leading a ghost tour such a chore for her. She had the script down pat and even added a little of her own spin to it. It wasn’t the tour itself that she minded; it was the never ending supernatural questions that always plagued a ghost tour.
“ Do you believe in ghosts?”
“ Yes,” she would lie. Because honestly why would a non-believer in the supernatural be leading a ghost tour.
“Have you ever seen a ghost?”
“Yes right here were we are standing…” another lie for the tourists. Then she would spin a tale more based in folklore than in actual truth. It was a talent she had inherited from her father who was a professor of folklore and mythology at a small college in upstate New York.
These were the usual question that were always asked on every tour usually by some husband or boyfriend that had been dragged on the tour by his wife or girlfriend who was a firm believer. Following Annie’s made up answer the men were usually smacked and given an ‘I told you so look’. Tourists were nothing if not
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