Flipping Fates

  Flipping Fates

  The Misadventures of Trisha Lee

  Book Three

  By A.C. Williams

  Copyright © 2021 A.C. Williams

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, subject line “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at uncommonuniverses@gmail.com.

  Uncommon Universes Press LLC

  1052 Cherry St.

  Danville, PA 17821

  www.uncommonuniverses.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Formatting: Sarah Delena White

  Cover Design: Cover Culture

  For Extra Crispy.

  You gave me this story idea in the first place, so it’s only right you show up in it somewhere.

  The Trisha Lee Adventures

  Finding Fireflies

  Saving Sparrows

  Flipping Fates

  And more to come!

  Table of Contents

  Houses Have Skeletons Too

  The Dolls Have Eyes

  The Guy with the Skull Tattoo

  Making Out in the Creepy Basement

  Duct Tape and Curses

  Now There’s a Ghost Hunter

  Nice to Meet You, Herb

  Maybe I Need a Haircut

  No Fate, Just Choice

  My Gran Is Cooler Than Your Gran

  Aaron and I Need to Talk

  What’s on the Inside?

  Now There’s the Police

  Ghosts Don’t Wear Cologne

  Neck Braces and Ninjas

  Making the Right Choice

  So Many Faces to Look At

  Defeated by Dog Food

  Why Can’t I Go to Tahiti?

  Gran Flirts with a Ghost Hunter

  The RV Really Does Smell Awful

  Aaron (and Herb) to the Rescue

  Duct Tape for the Win

  Gran Flirts with a Police Officer

  A Continuous Adventure

  Herb Has a Secret

  A Letter To The Reader

  About the Author

  Houses Have Skeletons Too

  I don’t believe in ghosts.

  And that’s what I’m going to keep telling myself, because there’s no way this house isn’t haunted.

  Even looking at it from inside my car, I just have the feeling that walking inside is going to be like something out of a horror movie. The old two-story house is crammed in between two other smaller homes on West Maple, and a narrow drive leads back to what I assume is a garage. I can’t see it because there’s an enormous, equally creepy 1970s-era RV parked in the way. The tiny yard at the front of the house hasn’t been cut, so it’s shaggy and littered with dandelions. With every breath of the ever-present wind, more little bits of dandelion fluff escape and scatter in the overgrown buffalo grass. The house windows are draped in black plastic. The porch droops like a frown, and the roof has patches of mismatched shingles, probably from the last hail storm.

  And—it’s orange.

  The house is orange.

  Like the vaguely citrus-flavored off-brand sherbet my mom buys to make punch with ginger ale.

  Along with the scalloped woodwork along the windows and in the eaves, as well as a few leftover strands of Christmas lights and plastic candy cane lawn ornaments, the worn-down orange house made me wonder if Hansel and Gretel might be trapped inside somewhere.

  Oh, joy. And I get to clean this place up? How do I get myself into these situations?

  The driver-side door of my purple Buick creaks unhappily as I climb outside into air so thick I could be standing in the jungle house at the zoo. In a month or so, summer heat would return to scorch the surface of the Kansas plains and dry out the wheat for harvest, but for at least another few weeks, we’ll be swimming in the lung-clutching humidity of late spring.

  Another car door bangs shut, and I cast a glance over my shoulder to where a brown-haired woman about my age approaches me from across the street. Thick glasses. Pale and skinny. Dressed head-to-toe in black. My friend, Cecily Coburn.

  Well, friend might be too strong of a word. We know each other. From church. Sort of.

  Cecily is hard to get to know. Always has been. I’ve known her for years, but I’m not sure I can tell you anything about her, other than the fact that she loves science fiction, speaks Elvish and Klingon, and can spend an outrageous number of hours on role-playing games—which I’ve heard of but know nothing about.

  I used to call her The Nerd in my mind, but over the years, I’ve learned that she’s more than that. I mean, she is a nerd. A massive nerd, and she struggles with talking to regular people. But there’s some wisdom hidden away under that mousy brown mop of hair.

  “Patricia.” Cecily pauses beside me and fixes her gaze on the orange house.

  “Hi, Cecily.”

  I dig in my jeans pocket for the keys.

  “Is this it?” Cecily scowls, gesturing to the orange monstrosity.

  “It is.”

  “Why is it orange?”

  “I think it’s to lure unsuspecting volunteers to their doom.” I roll my eyes and start toward the drooping porch. “Come on.”

  The realtor had given my dad two sets of keys, which he had very helpfully put on a ring, but neither he nor the realtor had been able to tell me which key went to what door. The wooden steps groan under my weight, and I duck beneath a rogue strand of Christmas lights that reach for my bushy blond hair from the recesses of the porch ceiling.

  The white front door with its cheerful oval window only adds to the creepiness factor, since the rest of the porch is falling down. Shaking off the inexplicable chill, I start trying keys in the lock.

  There are six keys on the ring.

  First key—doesn’t fit.

  Cecily stands on her tiptoes to see through the porch window, but the black plastic prevents her. “If the house was not such a terrible color, it might be a nice place to live.”

  “Nice?” I snort, trying the second key without success. “This place is creepy, Cecily.” Only Cecily would think a house like this could be nice.

  “I have watched many renovation shows,” Cecily said. “I can tell you, this home has what they call good bones.”

  “Probably because it’s full of skeletons.”

  Key number three: Also a failure.

  Cecily leans over the porch railing to look at the ugly RV in the driveway. “Will we be cleaning out the RV as well?”

  I sigh. “You know, I don’t really know what the story on the RV is.” Key four doesn’t work either. “All I know is that the old man who lived here died and left this place to the Union Rescue Mission. They’re hoping to fix the place up and auction it off, and they’ll use the proceeds.”

  Cecily nodded.

  I roll my eyes as key five fails as well. “The singles group was needing a summer ministry project anyway, so when my dad asked if we would be interested, I told him yes.” I glare at the door. “I didn’t expect that the house would be—like this.”

  “Orange?”

  “Creepy.” I hold up key six. “Found the key.” I stick it in the lock and scowl as it doesn’t fit. “Or not.”

  Cecily peeks around my arm, her head not even reaching my shou
lder, and adjusts her glasses. “Have you tried them all?”

  “Yes.” I wrinkle my nose at the keys in my palm. “None of them fit.” I shake my head. “The realtor wasn’t even sure which key goes where, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.”

  Cecily steps back. “Can you call him?”

  I set the ring of keys on the window sill next to the door and check my pocket for my phone, but I don’t find it. “I left my phone in the car.”

  Cecily makes a clicking sound with her mouth and turns in a circle. I raise my eyebrows at her. What is she doing? An impression of a Geiger counter?

  Cecily the Geiger Counter freezes halfway through her spin and points to an up-ended flower pot on the edge of the porch. Who knows how long it had been laying there with dirt strewn around it, and the dead flowers inside left to wither on the scraggly unpainted porch floor.

  Cecily kneels, tips the pot over and smirks at a fist-shaped rock sitting on the mound of potting soil.

  “What are you doing?”

  Cecily takes the rock and shows it to me. Up close, it looks—plastic? Cecily twists the rock in half, and it splits open to reveal a house key.

  “I have watched many police dramas,” Cecily says. “Realtors usually have a spare key laying around.”

  “Wow.” I take the key. “Impressive. Should I start calling you Detective?”

  “Only if there’s a murder.”

  I groan. “Cecily, don’t even joke about that, okay? Not while we’re standing on the creepiest porch in Tonkawa.”

  I shove the key into the lock, and it opens easily. The door swings free with a spine-tingling moan, and the palpable darkness within the house spills out onto the porch.

  Oh, I’m not ready for this.

  I reach inside and grope along the wall for a light switch, but I find nothing.

  The door bumps against something and stops, three-quarters of the way open, and a dusty, musty cardboard smell drifts out to wrap us in foreboding tendrils.

  I reach further into the house, my fingers trembling against the textured wallpaper, desperately seeking a light switch, because I am not going into this nightmare without some kind of light. My skin tickles and tingles as though I’m reaching through a spider’s web, but since I can’t see, that very well could be the case.

  “Patricia?”

  “What?”

  “You are squealing.”

  “Am I?”

  “It is annoying.”

  I roll my eyes. “Sorry to be a bother.” I shut my eyes and reach further.

  Light switch.

  Finally!

  My fingers find the blocky outline of an outlet panel with a switch, which I flip and wince as a light directly over the door flares to life.

  “Let there be light!” I straighten and stare into the house.

  My stomach turns over.

  Oh, no.

  “And there is light.” Cecily grunts at my elbow. “Yay.”

  Seriously, for once—just once—I’d like something in my life to go as expected. Why couldn’t this just be an old house that needed a fresh coat of paint? Why—this?

  The light in the entryway isn’t super bright, but it’s enough to reveal that the front room is full of junk. And not just full of junk—packed with it. Floor to more than halfway up the walls. Cardboard boxes. Trash bags full of papers and clothes. Plastic tubs and clear plastic shelves full of more junk.

  There might be a couch. There could be chairs. But no furniture is immediately visible beneath the mountain of stuff.

  “Oh my gosh.” I push the door open more, but it won’t go further.

  There’s probably more stuff behind it.

  I step inside, and the wood floor under my tennis shoes is tacky and sticky. The light shows a paper-strewn pathway through the mountains of junk in the front room, which leads deeper into the house.

  “Are you coming?” I look back at Cecily.

  “Lead the way.”

  Well, at least I won’t be alone.

  I forge our way through the front room into what should have been a dining area, but it too is littered with trash and possessions. Stacks of canned goods. Tubes of wrapping paper. Piles of cardboard. Baskets. Flower pots. Tupperware. Cereal boxes that look about fifty years old.

  “This is going to take a lot of work, Patricia.”

  “You think?” I reach around the door frame for another switch and find it.

  The floor is still sticky under my shoes, and the overwhelming odor of something dead and rotting makes my eyes water. The path through the second room opens up a bit, and the light shows the kitchen ahead, so full of garbage and pallets of canned goods that there’s no way to maneuver inside. To the right, a hallway leads into the darkness, but the junk is piled so high we’ll need a snow shovel to get through. On either side of the hallway are doors, old wooden doors with porcelain knobs.

  The one on the right is shut. The one on the left hangs open slightly.

  “Door number one?” Cecily points to the open door.

  “I would have called it door number two.” I sigh and reach for it.

  The blackness of the basement greets me with a rush of musty underground scent and makes me groan. I hate basements. Sure, in Kansas you have to have them. You’re taking risks with your life living in Kansas without a basement, but thinking people make their basements happy. White walls and lots of light. I can already guess that this horror house basement is going to look like a torture dungeon.

  At least the stairs are clear of clutter.

  Mostly.

  A few narrow boxes and cardboard tubes stand up against the partially sheet-rocked wall leading down into the darkness. I flip the light switch, and a single light flares to life in the gloom below us.

  “Are you coming with me?”

  Cecily smirks at me. “What is troubling you, Patricia? You aren’t actually scared of ghosts, are you?”

  “Ghosts, no.” I roll my eyes. “Rats and brown recluse spiders? Yes.”

  “I shall defend you.”

  “I feel so much better.” I sigh and start down the stairs, each step creaking and groaning beneath me.

  A mournful wail begins in the darkness.

  I freeze on the step, holding my breath. My heart in my throat. My stomach somersaulting.

  It starts low, increasing in volume, no longer sorrowful, it grows to an ear-splitting frequency—

  “Ah. Noontime.” Cecily shifts behind me.

  I shut my eyes and try to calm my raging heart.

  It’s Monday, and it’s noon.

  The weekly tornado siren test. Of course. How could I have forgotten?

  For crying out loud. I forgot because I’m walking into the scariest basement in the universe with nobody but Cecily the Nerd for backup. I haven’t got my phone. And the darkness is bound to be full of spiders just looking for an excuse to crawl all over me and get into my hair, and why am I even doing this?

  “Patricia?”

  “What?”

  “Shall we continue?”

  I swallow and breathe out. “Sure.” I continue down the creaking stairs, the wail of the tornado sirens still crying above us. Fortunately, the basement door shutting dulls some of the sound. I’m not sure I could survive the basement with the sirens doing their best impression of a banshee.

  The further down we go, the darker it seems to get. The unmistakable murky scent of dampness lodges in my throat.

  The claustrophobic stairwell opens up into a cement chamber lined with shelves and stacked tubs and a skeleton of two-by-fours. Of course, mountains of trash and boxes and cinder blocks and bricks and pipes and everything you can imagine make navigating in the darkness practically impossible.

  I should have brought a flashlight.

  “This isn’t a basement.” I turn in place. “It’s a cellar.”

  “Truly, Patricia, your anxieties are getting the better of you.” Cecily moves past me and peers into the darkness.

  I gesture
around us. “Do you want to explore down here?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “Me neither.” I turn and start back up the stairwell.

  I’ve seen enough of this place. This house is going to be the death of me. I grab the porcelain knob and twist—and the door doesn’t open.

  Old doors are tricky sometimes. You have to hold your face just right.

  I redouble my grip on the doorknob and twist.

  Nothing.

  I push the door, and it doesn’t move.

  My heart falls into my stomach. “Oh, no, that’s not good.”

  “What is it?” Cecily asks at my elbow.

  I turn the knob again, but the latch doesn’t catch.

  “I think the door locked behind us.”

  “Unfortunate.”

  I glare at her. “Yes. Unfortunate.”

  “Perhaps the other keys on the ring will unlock it?” Cecily raises her bushy brown eyebrows at me.

  I blink at her. The other keys. Right. Why didn’t I think of that?

  I reach into my jeans pocket and freeze. The keys aren’t there. Where had they gone?

  “I don’t have the keys,” I say.

  “Very unfortunate.” Cecily deadpans.

  I push on the door harder, but it’s solid wood. It might even be original to the house, which was built in the twenties I think. So there’s no way I can break it down, not while I’m standing on rickety stairs.

  “Do you have your phone?” I turn back to Cecily.

  “I do not.”

  Of course, she doesn’t.

  “Did anyone know you were coming here?”

  “I have no friends that would care to know about my daily activities.” Cecily descends the stairs.

  I follow her slowly. “My dad knows I was coming here. So does Aaron.”

  Cecily nods. “Then nothing remains but to wait patiently for rescue.”

  I sink to the bottom step and slump my face into my hands. Cecily sits cross-legged on the concrete floor.

  “Do you want to sit on the steps?” I ask. “I can make room.”

  “I am perfectly comfortable in my current position. Thank you, Patricia.”

  The cold, damp of the basement creeps up my arms and crawls under the light blouse I’m wearing. What was I thinking? How could I have set the keys down? How could I have let the door shut behind us?